Arts
What the V&A Dundee exhibition doesn’t tell you about tartan
Angus Colwell is not convinced that the V&A Dundee’s exhibition Tartan is what the city needs
The pity of war
‘My subject is war and the pity of war,’ Wilfred Owen wrote in the poems which Benjamin Britten set to…
One of the best things you’ll see on TV this year: Netflix’s War Sailor reviewed
War Sailor (Krigsseileren), a three-part drama on Netflix about the Norwegian merchant navy in the second world war, is one…
Time for Akram Khan to move on from climate-change choreography
It must be 20 years since I first saw Akram Khan dance, and I will never forget the impression he…
Reframes Patricia Highsmith as a gay icon – and ignores her anti-Semitism: Loving Highsmith reviewed
I first discovered writer Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train, Carol, the five Ripley novels) as a young teenager working…
Crossing Continents is the best of the BBC
Ask a member of Generation Z where in the world they would most like to live, and chances are they…
Is milk racist?
I was tired when I went to see Milk at the Wellcome Collection, having been up for much of the…
Why can’t I let go of my records?
I’m not a natural lender. I’m a reasonably soft touch when it comes to money, but regarding the important things…
An epic bore: A Little Life, at the Harold Pinter Theatre, reviewed
A Little Life, based on Hanya Yanagihara’s novel, is set in a New York apartment shared by four mega-successful yuppies:…
An old production that’s aged better than most: Royal Opera’s Turandot reviewed
Since its première in 1984, Andrei Serban’s production of Puccini’s Turandot has been revived 15 times at Covent Garden, not…
Why Christopher Wren died thinking his life had been a failure
Adrian Tinniswood on the fall and rise — and fall and rise — of England’s greatest architect
Erotic intensity
We think of television – even in this age of a thousand streamers – as something we pig out on…
Felt like the product of a night in the pub: BBC1’s Great Expectations reviewed
By now a genuinely radical way to turn a Victorian novel into a TV drama would be to take that…
Deeply unsatisfying: Berlusconi – A New Musical, at Southwark Playhouse Elephant, reviewed
Berlusconi: A New Musical, an excellent title, has opened at a new venue in south London, Southwark Playhouse Elephant. The…
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Godland reviewed
Godland is a film to see on the big screen: not just for its awesome, immersive cinematography, but because it…
Distressingly vulgar: Royal Ballet’s Cinderella reviewed
Despite its widespread rating as one of his masterpieces, Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella is chock full of knots, gaps and stumbling…
Artists’ dogs win the rosettes: Portraits of Dogs – From Gainsborough to Hockney, at the Wallace Collection, reviewed
Walking on Hampstead Heath the December before Covid, I got caught up in a festive party of bichon frises dressed,…
A look inside Britain’s only art gallery in jail
Stuart Jeffries meets the prisonerartists of HMP Grendon
Searching in vain for The African Queen
What a weird world we inhabit when it comes to popular culture or indeed to any culture high or low.…
Succession works because the writers don’t care about the boring business storylines
I have a theory that many great artists’ strength is a product of their weakness. The flaw of the relentlessly…
Why supergroups nearly always suck
Recently in these pages, ruminating on the ghastly Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I wrote that music does not…
In praise of From Our Own Correspondent
Most of us are familiar with the notion of writer’s block, that paralysis of invention induced by the appalling sight…
Emma Watson’s performance is extraordinary: God’s Creatures reviewed
There are some films that you know will be quality simply by the actors who have agreed to be in…
Flawless: Accidental Death of an Anarchist, at the Lyric Hammersmith, reviewed
Accidental Death of an Anarchist has been performed all over the world with varying degrees of success. Written by Dario…
