Arts
Sweeney Plod
The Legend of Barney Thomson is the directorial debut of actor Robert Carlyle, and it’s one of those black comedies…
Wish list
Compilation schompilation. Having been in music for as long as I have you would think I had a good idea…
Wish list
Compilation schompilation. Having been in music for as long as I have you would think I had a good idea…
Institutional feminism
Some revelations, it seems, are capable of being endlessly repeated while still remaining revelations. Think of all the books, articles…
Why plotting a sound map of London is impossible
It’s easy to tag the city’s terrain by writer. But what, wonders Philip Clark, might a map of its music look like?
Ninja Turtles have no place in Cinderella
What could induce a grown-up, rational, childless person to go to see the ballet of Cinderella? You’ll expect to cringe…
The real winner in the Tchaikovsky competition is the man who came last
Lucas Debargue, a 24-year-old French pianist, came fourth in the finale of the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow on 30 June,…
True Story does not deserve to have been told
True Story is based on the book True Story, which is itself based on a true story, so there is…
There’s not a trace of shaving foam in sight in the early Turners on show at Salisbury Museum
It has often been related how, towards the end of his long life, a critical barb got under J.M.W. Turner’s…
Delibes’ Lakmé at Holland Park is visually soporific, but the singing keeps Geoff Brown awake
These are nervous times at the opera. When should we expect the gratuitous rape scene? Will the director relocate the…
Trevor Nunn’s Volpone reviewed: Henry Goodman bewitches the audience by doing nothing wittily
Easy playwright to get on with, Ben Jonson. His world is simple, his tastes endearing. He likes golden-hearted swindlers and…
The Proms is taxpayers’ money well spent: it’s a national asset like fish and chips and the royal baby
Make no mistake: the Proms, whose 2015 season was launched last night, would not, could not, exist without the BBC,…
Joanna Lumley is ‘thrilled’ by everything, even being spanked by a Mongolian shaman, in her new Trans-Siberian Adventure
For keen students of China, this week’s television provided yet more proof that Deng Xiaoping’s decision to open the country…
Culture buff
It was a sparkling winter morning when the Art Gallery of NSW revealed the 47 finalists for the Archibald Prize…
To tell you the truth…
True Story is based on the book True Story, which is itself based on a true story, so there is…
All you need is love
What could induce a grown-up, rational, childless person to go to see the ballet of Cinderella? You’ll expect to cringe…
He wuz robbed!
Lucas Debargue, a 24-year-old French pianist, came fourth in the finale of the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow on 30 June,…
He wuz robbed!
Lucas Debargue, a 24-year-old French pianist, came fourth in the finale of the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow on 30 June,…
Serial thriller
For keen students of China, this week’s television provided yet more proof that Deng Xiaoping’s decision to open the country…
John Waters interview: ‘We can’t make fun of Bruce Jenner?’
No one does transgression like the filmmaker John Waters. Jasper Rees talks to him about political correctness, post-ops and pubes
Why do we always beat up on drummers?
It’s rare that I see a piece about music that makes me want to cheer from the rafters and shake…
When is a rape not a rape? Fiona Shaw's Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne reviewed
When is a rape not a rape? It’s an unsettling question — far more so than anything offered up by…
I honestly had no idea how rubbish The Choir would be
If heartwarming, against-the-odds, triumph-over-adversity, wrong-side-of-the-tracks films float your boat and you are in no way demanding then The Choir is…
Forget Vienna - Britain now has its own chamber of curiosities at the British Museum
Art is not jewellery. Its value does not reside in the price of the materials from which it is made.…
A handy liberal guide on how to save mankind, courtesy of Soho Theatre
Refugee crisis in the Mediterranean! Fear not. Anders Lustgarten and his trusty rescue ship are here to save mankind. Lampedusa…
