Arts
Policed conviviality: Serpentine Pavilion 2023 reviewed
As I sat down at this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, I overheard a curious exchange. ‘You mustn’t create art within art,’…
Time to take your meds, Kanye
No one does agonising quite like Mobeen Azhar. In several BBC documentaries now, he’s set his face to pensive, gone…
Joshua Reynolds’s revival
In front of the banner advertising the RA Summer Exhibition, the swagger statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-92) by Alfred…
Why the Chester Mystery Plays are more popular than ever
The Chester Mystery Plays date back to the 13th century – but are more popular now than ever, finds Richard Bratby
Captivating marvels
It’s fascinating to hear that one of the greater theatre directors we have produced, Neil Armfield, is directing Anthony LaPaglia…
Taut as a drumskin: Dialogues des Carmélites, at Glyndebourne, reviewed
The three Just Stop Oil protestors were sitting in the stalls, somewhere near the middle of the front row. Someone…
Two artists who broke the rules: Soutine | Kossoff, at Hastings Contemporary, reviewed
Rules in art exist to be broken but it takes chutzpah, which could explain why so many rule-breakers in modern…
Short of sparkle: Cinderella-in-the-round, at the Royal Albert Hall, reviewed
Having been unexpectedly delighted by the Royal Ballet’s revival of Christopher Wheeldon’s Corybantic Games at Covent Garden last week, I…
Netflix has struck gold: Tour de France: Unchained reviewed
I’m ideologically opposed to bicycles for all the obvious reasons: they don’t have lovely big nostrils which you can blow…
Is Richard Thompson Britain’s Bob Dylan?
There are artists you go to see expecting to be challenged, surprised, even let down. And there are artists you…
Gripping and admirable: BBC Radio 4’s Fever: The Hunt for Covid’s Origins reviewed
It’s the whodunnit – or whatdunnit – that has kept scientists, politicians, journalists and armchair sleuths speculating ever since the…
An unreliable history: When Winston Went to War with the Wireless, at the Donmar, reviewed
When Winston Went to War with the Wireless is the clumsy and misleading title of a new play about John…
Is wrestling an art?
It isn’t easy selling out Wembley Stadium with its capacity of between 70,000 and 90,000 (depending on the exact arrangement).…
Innocent pertness
There are times when anyone might decide to throw in scanning the range of literature and art and music and…
One of the best (if not the jolliest) TV dramas of 2023: BBC1’s Best Interests reviewed
In the opening minutes of Best Interests (Monday and Tuesday), an estranged middle-aged couple made their separate ways to court,…
Same old, same old: Wayne McGregor’s Untitled, 2023, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed
My witty friend whispered that Wayne McGregor’s new ballet Untitled, 2023 put her in mind of Google HQ – it’s…
Like attending a joyous religious service: We Will Rock You, at the Coliseum, reviewed
One of the earliest jukebox musicals has returned to the West End. When the show opened in 2002 the author,…
To die for: Grange Park Opera’s Tristan & Isolde reviewed
There are a lot of corpses on stage at the end of Charles Edwards’s production of Tristan & Isolde for…
Brilliantly unhinged: Grace Jones, at Hampton Court Palace, reviewed
Some artists need flash bombs to make an impression on stage. Some need giant screens. Some need to run around…
Birmingham barbershop meets the Folies-Bergère: Hurvin Anderson’s Salon Paintings, at the Hepworth Wakefield, reviewed
There’s a nice irony to the title Salon Paintings when the salon in question is a barbershop, an irony that…
The woman who pioneered colour photography
Hermione Eyre on Yevonde, the pioneering 1930s photographer whose colour portraits evoke a vanishing world
A staggering performance
It would be wrong to belittle the Rembrandt exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria because the emphasis is on…
Hamlet fans will love this: Re-Member Me, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed
A puzzle at Hampstead Theatre. Literally, a brain teaser. Its new production, Re-member Me, is a one-man show written and…
