Arts
The dialogue ripples with energy: King Hamlin, at the Park Theatre, reviewed
King Hamlin is a shock-horror drama about gang crime in London. Hamlin, aged 17, has left school without learning any…
Refreshingly macho: BBC1’s SAS Rogue Heroes reviewed
Sunday’s SAS Rogue Heroes – about the founding of perhaps Britain’s most famous regiment – began with a revealing variation…
A total (and often gripping) theatrical experience: Scottish Opera’s Ainadamar reviewed
Do you remember Osvaldo Golijov? Two decades ago he was classical music’s Next Big Thing: a credible postmodernist with a…
A generational pop talent: Rina Sawayama, at the O2 Academy Brixton, reviewed
The first time I saw Franz Ferdinand was at the sadly lost Astoria, just after the release of their first…
Grace and lucidity
The news of Carmen Callil’s death last week shocked the literary world even though it was expected. She made an…
Bold, self-assured reimagining of Monteverdi: Opera North's Orpheus reviewed
You wouldn’t like Tamerlano when he’s angry. ‘My heart seethes with rage,’ he sings, in Act III of Handel’s opera…
One long moan of woe: Crystal Pite's Light of Passage, at the Royal Opera, reviewed
I was moved and shaken by Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern when I first saw it in 2017. In richly visualised…
Tenderness and menace: Bob Dylan, at the London Palladium, reviewed
Bob Dylan has always toyed with audiences. He plays what he wants, how he wants, letting his mood dictate tempo…
Pure scorn without wit or insight: Triangle of Sadness reviewed
The latest film from Ruben Ostlund received an eight-minute standing ovation after its screening in Cannes and also won the…
Kids will enjoy this new show at the West End's newest theatre more than adults: Marvellous, @sohoplace, reviewed
London has a brand-new theatre – yet again. Last summer, a cabaret venue opened in the Haymarket for the first…
A Soviet version of Martin Parr: Adam Curtis’s Russia 1985-1999 –TraumaZone reviewed
Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone – even the title makes you want to scream – is Adam Curtis’s Metal Machine Music: the…
Compellingly personal arena experience: Bon Iver, at Ovo Hydro, reviewed
A reliable metric for measuring pop success is hard to find these days, as Michael Hann noted in these pages…
The genius of Cezanne
Pity the poor curators of major exhibitions struggling to find fresh takes on famous masters. The curators of Tate Modern’s…
War games do something seriously unpleasant to our brains
Not all video games are war games but those that are do something deeply unpleasant to our brains, says Sam Kriss
One night in a Gentlemen’s Club
How fascinating it is to see that Australia’s Brendan Cowell is playing John Proctor in the new English National Theatre…
A solid evening’s entertainment: Rambert's Peaky Blinders ballet reviewed
Being of a squeamish sensibility and prejudiced by a low opinion of recent BBC drama, I can claim only a…
Touchingly free of cynicism: C4's Somewhere Boy reviewed
At the start of Somewhere Boy, an 18-year-old boy is rescued from an isolated house by his aunt Sue following…
Harry Styles's behind is the only draw: My Policeman reviewed
My Policemanis a forbidden love drama starring both Harry Styles – whose bid for movie stardom continues apace – and…
Do we need another Lucian Freud exhibition?
Do we need another Lucian Freud exhibition? After years of exposure to his paintings of naked bodies posed like casualties…
The rise and fall of Tammy Faye
Robert Gore-Langton explores the remarkable life of televangelist Tammy Faye, and its descent into chaos
We should take Robbie Williams more seriously
Oh, nostalgia – so much better than it used to be! You’d never have guessed pop music was once the…
A miniature rite of a very English spring: a Vaughan Williams rediscovery in Liverpool
Imagine a folk dance without music. Actually, you don’t have to: poke about on YouTube and you’ll find footage from…
This production needs more dosh: Good, at the Harold Pinter Theatre, reviewed
Good, starring David Tennant, needs more dosh spent on it. The former Doctor Who plays John, a literary academic living…
Swerves of warmth and coolness
One of the great things about the Australian Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet is that the kids love it. Even the…
Ravishing, daring biopic of Emily Brontë: Emily reviewed
The life of Emily Brontë is an enduring object of fascination. So small, the life, so sparse, so limited. Yet…
