Arts
Reimaging the lost masterpieces of antiquity
Martin Gayford visits two new surveys of Greek and Roman sculpture at the British Museum and Palazzo Strozzi. Reimagining what’s lost is as much of an inspiration as what remains
Wellington's PR machine
The history of portraiture is festooned with images of sitters overwhelmed by dress, setting and the accoutrements of worldly success.…
How gaming grew up
Sometimes a guy feels abstracted from the world. He visits Europe’s finest galleries, but the paintings seem to hang like…
Why we should revel in the empty virtuosity of Handel's pasticcios
Before the jukebox musical, back when Mamma Mia!, Jersey Boys and Viva Forever! were still dollar-shaped glints in an as-yet-unborn…
Shrapnel at the Arcola works for the slayers, not the slain
Quite a hit factory these days, the Hampstead Theatre. The latest candidate for West End glory is Hugh Whitemore’s bio-drama…
Lily James's Cinderella is more of a doormat than my actual doormat
Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella is a Disney film based on a Disney film, so is double Disney, if you like. It…
Does the future of radio really lie in podcasts?
To a debate on the future of radio at the BBC where it turns out not to be a discussion…
Channel 4's The Coalition reviewed: heroically free of cynicism
In a late schedule change, Channel 4’s Coalition was shifted from Thursday to Saturday to make room for Jeremy Paxman…
Culture Buff
We’re all keen on infrastructure at the moment so it’s worth remembering what an astounding impact the Suez Canal made…
Independents’ day
Sometimes a guy feels abstracted from the world. He visits Europe’s finest galleries, but the paintings seem to hang like…
Independents’ day
Sometimes a guy feels abstracted from the world. He visits Europe’s finest galleries, but the paintings seem to hang like…
Will you miss Mad Men? James Delingpole won’t
Mad Men looked great but, as the final season draws to a close, was there really anything to it, wonders James Delingpole
Radiant Vermin at the Soho Theatre reviewed: a barmy little sketch posing as a revolutionary satire
Philip Ridley is best known as the screenwriter of The Krays, in which Gary and Martin Kemp played Ronnie and…
Richard Diebenkorn at the Royal Academy reviewed: among the best visual evocations of LA there are
It is true that, like wine, certain artists don’t travel. Richard Diebenkorn, subject of the spring exhibition in the Royal…
The Voices review: a hateful, repellent, empty film
The Voices is ‘a dark comedy about a serial killer’, which is not an overcrowded genre, and I think we…
50 shades of beige: English National Ballet's Modern Masters at Sadler's Wells, reviewed
My moment of the week was stumbling into the shocking, fantastical Cabinet of Curiosities in the Alexander McQueen show at…
Royal Opera's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny review: far too well behaved
Brecht/Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny was premièred in 1930, Auden/Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress in 1951. Twenty-one…
Raised by Wolves review: council-estate life but not as you know it
Journalist, novelist, broadcaster and figurehead of British feminism Caitlin Moran, who writes most of the Times and even had her…
Radio is the best way to mug up on the classics
If ever I found myself at a pretentious literary party obliged to play David Lodge’s ‘Humiliation’ game and to confess…
The Heckler: Why I’m allergic to Stephen Sondheim
I came out in a rash when I heard that Emma Thompson was to star in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd…
Culture buff
In her memoir Must You Go?, Antonia Fraser records an exchange between her husband Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett in…
50 shades of beige
My moment of the week was stumbling into the shocking, fantastical Cabinet of Curiosities in the Alexander McQueen show at…
Stephen Sondheim
I came out in a rash when I heard that Emma Thompson was to star in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd…
Stephen Sondheim
I came out in a rash when I heard that Emma Thompson was to star in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd…
Alexander McQueen may have been a prat but at least he was an interesting one
Alexander McQueen may have been a prat but at least he was an interesting one, says Shura Slater
