Arts
Children’s radio was once at the core of the BBC - now it’s all but disappeared
It was a bit of a surprise to hear Jarvis Cocker, the embodiment of cool and former frontman of Pulp,…
Culture buff
The arts are alive and well heading into 2015
No brainer
One feels the pang of impending failure whenever the Royal Ballet ventures like a deluded Don Quixote into a periodic…
The power of hate
With seconds to spare, I think I have chanced upon my music book of the year. Such choices are always…
The power of hate
With seconds to spare, I think I have chanced upon my music book of the year. Such choices are always…
Sex, lies and El Sistema
An explosive new book uncovers abuse at the heart of one of classical music’s most revered institutions. Damian Thompson investigates
The death of the life class
‘Love of the human form’, writes the painter John Lessore, ‘must be the origin of that peculiar concept, the Life…
We must never again let this 19th century Norwegian master slip into oblivion
You won’t have heard of Peder Balke. Yet this long-neglected painter from 19th-century Norway is now the subject of a…
Why Church music is back in vogue - and squeaky-gate music has had its day
One of the growth areas of contemporary music is in setting sacred texts. It might be thought that I had…
Sacred Monsters, Sadler’s Wells: Sylvie Guillem and Akram Kham’s captivating final boogie
I’m dashing between dance theatres at the moment and there’s just so much to tell you about. I could linger…
Forget the Germans. It’s the French who made classical music what it is
The poor French. When we think of classical music, we always think of the Germans. It’s understandable. Instinctive. Ingrained. But…
The recruitment company to go to if you've got no arms or legs
When to launch? For impresarios, this is the eternal dilemma. Autumn is so crowded with press nights that producers are…
St. Vincent: too much lovability and not enough roguishness from Bill Murray
Is Bill Murray fit for sainthood? Certainly his fans have him figure as some sort of lesser divinity, maybe one…
BBC1’s Remember Me: the curious case of the killer Yorkshire taps
BBC1’s authentically spooky three-part ghost story Remember Me hasn’t yet revealed what’s really going on in that gloomy Yorkshire town.…
Why you have to listen to this year's Reith Lectures
Each year the Reith Lectures come round as Radio 4’s annual assertion of intellectual authority, fulfilling the BBC’s original aspiration…
Culture buff
We’ve established that capital city festivals are for other people. Their principal purpose is to bring people into the city,…
Dance One last dance
I’m dashing between dance theatres at the moment and there’s just so much to tell you about. I could linger…
Chorus of approval
One of the growth areas of contemporary music is in setting sacred texts. It might be thought that I had…
Chorus of approval
One of the growth areas of contemporary music is in setting sacred texts. It might be thought that I had…
How Hollywood is killing the art of screenwriting
Cinema is tough right now for writers. Thomas W. Hodgkinson reports from the front line at the Austin Film Festival
Does Allen Jones deserve a retrospective at the Royal Academy?
It has been a vintage season for mannequins. At the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, an exhibition called Silent Partners looks…
Paddington review: put your mind at rest - no one gets marmalade up the bum
‘Please look after this bear,’ reads the famous label hanging round Paddington’s neck, and this film does that, admirably, handsomely,…
The National’s latest attempt to cheer us up: three hours of poverty porn
Bombay is now called Mumbai by everyone bar its residents, whose historic name (from the Portuguese for ‘beautiful cove’) has…
ENO’s Gospel According to the Other Mary: great music weighed down by a worthy staging
Terrorism; East-West diplomacy; nuclear war: John Adams’s operas have poured music into the faultlines of 21st-century global politics, and the…
Is this 65-year-old British pianist the next big thing in classical music?
Earlier this month the Wigmore Hall was sold out for a Schubert recital by a concert pianist whose only solo…
