Arts
Merchant of Venice at the Globe reviewed: a tip-top production - and a high quality script too
If Julian, Dick, George and Anne had become terrorists they’d have called themselves The Angry Brigade. It’s such a Wendy…
Benefits Street reviewed: if anyone’s being exploited, it’s the taxpayers, says James Delingpole
My favourite scene in the first episode of the new series of Benefits Street (Mondays, Channel 4) — now relocated…
What happened to the children who survived the Holocaust?
‘I call Zelma Cacik who may be living in London,’ says the announcer, in the clipped RP accent of the…
The Heckler: Shakespeare's duds should be struck from the canon
I love Shakespeare. But when he pulls on his wellies and hikes into the forest I yearn for the exit.…
Culture buff
Elijah Moshinsky is back in town, in Melbourne, where it all began. Responsible for the most insightful and beautiful productions…
To the maddest max
No one goes slack-jawed in wonder at the movies any more. In our cyber-enabled times, kid designers can mega-pixelate any…
Shakespeare’s duds
I love Shakespeare. But when he pulls on his wellies and hikes into the forest I yearn for the exit.…
Shakespeare’s duds
I love Shakespeare. But when he pulls on his wellies and hikes into the forest I yearn for the exit.…
The lying game
My favourite scene in the first episode of the new series of Benefits Street (Mondays, Channel 4) — now relocated…
Don’t believe Orson Welles, says his biographer Simon Callow — especially when he calls himself a failure
Orson Welles would have been 100 this month. When he died in 1985, aged 70, the wonder was that he…
Modernism lite? Modigliani at the Estorick Collection reviewed
The British painter Nina Hamnett recalled that Modigliani had a very large, very untidy studio. Dangling from the end of…
Top Five reviewed: Chris Rock hits rock bottom
The oeuvre of Chris Rock may not be fully known in this parish. He was the African-American stand-up who made…
American Buffalo at Wyndham’s reviewed: ‘magnificent, multicoloured, vast and tragic’
David Mamet is Pinter without the Pinteresque indulgences, the absurdities and obscurities, the pauses, the Number 38 bus routes. American…
Rosie Kay’s 5 Soldiers: brutishly physical and powerfully striking
In dance, it’s usually the moment the boys start fighting that challenges your suspension of disbelief. Synchronised fencing (MacMillan’s Romeo…
‘Bewitching’: Krol Roger at the Royal Opera reviewed
‘What gives your lies such power?’ asks the bewildered Sicilian leader in Szymanowski’s opera Krol Roger. The question is addressed…
If One Direction lost one more member, would they be quorate?
Where were you when you heard that Zayn Malik had left One Direction? No, me neither, but as my teenage…
Channel 4’s No Offence reviewed: ‘hugely entertaining and wildly unconvincing’
With Clocking Off, Shameless and State of Play among his credits, Paul Abbott is undoubtedly one of the most respected…
This radio programme almost made me like Piers Morgan
An extraordinary black-and-white photograph of a young black boy taken on the Isle of Wight by Julia Margaret Cameron in…
Culture buff
By any measure it was a glamorous auction. The auctioneer was Mark Politmore, aka 7th Baron Poltimore, Deputy Chairman of…
Rock bottom
The oeuvre of Chris Rock may not be fully known in this parish. He was the African-American stand-up who made…
Boys on the march
In dance, it’s usually the moment the boys start fighting that challenges your suspension of disbelief. Synchronised fencing (MacMillan’s Romeo…
And then there were four
Where were you when you heard that Zayn Malik had left One Direction? No, me neither, but as my teenage…
And then there were four
Where were you when you heard that Zayn Malik had left One Direction? No, me neither, but as my teenage…
Not much cop
With Clocking Off, Shameless and State of Play among his credits, Paul Abbott is undoubtedly one of the most respected…
If you thought politics was boring, you should check out today’s political theatre
How has political theatre fared during the coalition? Not very well, writes Lloyd Evans
