Arts
Full of love: Butler, Blake and Grant, at the Union Chapel, reviewed
Years ago, I asked Robert Plant what he felt about the world’s love of ‘Stairway to Heaven’. He said he…
Cumbersome muddle: Women, Beware the Devil, at the Almeida Theatre, reviewed
Rupert Goold’s new show, Women, Beware the Devil, has great costumes, sumptuous sets and an intriguing chessboard stage like a…
The day I sold my destroyed piano to the Tate
One day in October 1966 I came home from school and found a large man stripped to the waist, attacking…
So formulaic I could have written it: Champions reviewed
Champions is an underdog sports movie starring Woody Harrelson as a baseball coach forced to take on a team with…
Ukraine must stop destroying its cultural heritage
Ukraine must stop demolishing its public statues, says Yevheniia Moliar
How two Dutchmen introduced marine art to Britain
In March 1675 the Keeper of His Majesty’s Lodgings at Greenwich received an order for ‘Three pairs of shutters for…
An ecstatic torment of self-delight
What a week of music. On Thursday night we listened to the Chamber Philharmonia Cologne do Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at…
Dated and wasteful: Rusalka, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed
Careful what you wish for. There can be no definitive way to stage an opera, and it’s the critic’s duty…
Approaches perfection: Medea, @sohoplace, reviewed
Winner’s Curse is a hybrid drama by Dan Patterson and Daniel Taub which opens as a lecture by a fictional…
What’s the difference between Shamima Begum and Unity Mitford?
The debate sparked by Josh Baker’s BBC podcast on Shamima Begum, and her teenage flight to join Isis, has divided…
His nasal American-Yorkshire voice struggles to convince: Yungblud, at OVO Hydro, reviewed
Even before albums became bloated, thanks to the largesse offered by CDs and streaming, most contained filler: those so-so songs…
Devastating: Close reviewed
The Belgian film Close, written and directed by Lukas Dhont, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes and is up…
In defence of the fabrications of reality TV
My new favourite tennis player, just ahead of Novak Djokovic, is Nick Kyrgios. Up until recently I’d barely heard of…
Thoroughly unsettling, never simplistic: Mike Nelson – Extinction Beckons, at the Hayward Gallery, reviewed
You enter through the gift shop. Mike Nelson has turned the Hayward Gallery upside down and back to front for…
Blue monkeys, bull-leaping and child sacrifice: why were the Minoans so weird?
Daisy Dunn on the mysterious Minoans
Shy old charmer
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra kicks off its 2023 season with a sumptuously ambitious gala concert on the evening of Friday…
How has it escaped being cancelled? The Lehman Trilogy, at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, reviewed
Standing at the Sky’s Edge is an ode to a monstrous carbuncle. The atrocity in question is a concrete gulag,…
Riveting and titillating: BBC2’s Parole reviewed
There’s a distinct and rather cunning whiff of cakeism about the new documentary series Parole. On the one hand, it…
The crowd was the star of the show: Carly Rae Jepsen, at Alexandra Palace, reviewed
The other week I saw a T-shirt bearing the caption ‘For the girls, the gays and the theys’. And if…
Humanity, clarity and warmth: Alice Neel, at the Barbican Art Gallery, reviewed
If you want to be taken seriously as a contemporary painter, paint big. ‘Blotter’, the picture that won the 34-year-old…
The mysterious world of British folk costume
Christopher Howse on the transformative power of folk costume
Aristocratic panache
Last week saw the streaming of the sixth and final episode of Happy Valley, the Yorkshire policier with the great…
What I love about Netflix’s Kleo is that it’s so damned German
I was almost tempted not to watch Kleo because it sounded like so many things I’d seen before: beautiful ex-Stasi…
The unknown German composer championed by Mahler
I was sceptical when the lady on the bus to Reading town centre told me that her father knew Liszt.…
