Arts
Gandhi’s killer is more loveable than his victim: The Father and the Assassin reviewed
Dictating to the Estate is a piece of community theatre that explains why Grenfell Tower went up in flames on…
Ricky Gervais is an achingly conventional Millennial posing as a naughty maverick
Just how edgy and dangerous is Ricky Gervais? There is no one more edgy and dangerous, we learn from no…
The art of extinction
Sam Kriss on the power of paleoart
Nobody paints the sea like Emile Nolde
In April, ten years after opening its gallery on the beach in Hastings, the Jerwood Foundation gifted the building to…
I suspect this was a rush job: Like Water for Chocolate reviewed
How much weight of plot can dance carry? Balanchine famously insisted that there are no mothers-in-law in ballet, and masters…
Big glass slippers to fill
It sounds like a wet dream of musical theatre, doesn’t it? A Cinderella by Rodgers & Hammerstein in a visually…
Harry Styles has entered his imperial phase – but his music still has no distinct identity
At the turn of this century, looking back on the late 1980s when the Pet Shop Boys could do no…
On the brink of delivering something special: Sky's The Midwich Cuckoos reviewed
A youngish couple leave London and drive off excitedly to make a fresh start in more rural surroundings. They demonstrate…
A mess: British Museum's Feminine Power – the Divine to the Demonic reviewed
The point at which the heart sinks in this exhibition is, unfortunately, right at the outset. That’s where we meet…
Nationalise the royal collection!
It is high time we did justice to the treasures of the royal collection, says Jack Wakefield
Newcomers will need to read the play in advance: Julius Caesar, at the Globe, reviewed
Some things are done well in the Globe’s new Julius Caesar. The assassination is a thrilling spectacle. Ketchup pouches concealed…
Serves Ethel Smyth's opera magnificently: Glyndebourne's The Wreckers reviewed
You’ve got to hand it to Dame Ethel Smyth. Working in an era when to be a British composer implied…
A self-regarding take on I’m-not-sure-what: Bergman Island reviewed
Bergman Island sounds, on first acquaintance, like a theme-park attraction. Roll up, roll up! Let us speed you through the…
Wizardly wham-bam
It’s an extraordinary thing in its way to revisit Harry Potter and the Cursed Child three years after its triumphant…
A brief introduction to Scottish art
When Nikolaus Pevsner dedicated his 1955 Reith Lectures to ‘The Englishness of English Art’, he left out the Scots. The…
The return of the implausibly more-ish Borgen
Borgen star Sidse Babett Knudsen talks to Jasper Rees about why, after a break of ten years, the implausibly more-ish series is returning for a fourth season
Oddly unconvincing: Apple TV+'s The Essex Serpent reviewed
Having now watched it to the end, I would say that Slow Horses (Apple TV+) is by far the best…
Touching, eclectic and exhilarating: Rambert Dance is in great shape
Rambert ages elegantly: it might just rank as the world’s oldest company devoted to modern dance (whatever that term might…
Hard to believe this rambling apprentice-piece ever made it to the stage: Almeida's The House of Shades reviewed
The House of Shades is a state-of-the nation play that covers the past six decades of grinding poverty in Nottingham.…
How I fell in love with the blues
I was never into the blues that much. I listened to a bit of Roy Buchanan and Rory Gallagher but…
Claude Vivier ought to be a modern classic. Why isn't he?
April is the cruellest month, but May is shaping up quite pleasantly and the daylight streamed in through the east…
The cruelty of reality TV was part of the appeal
Jade Goody appeared on Big Brother in 2002. She was a short, loud, blonde-haired woman who broadcast her every thought…
You certainly don’t watch Top Gun for the script
Top Gun is back, nearly 40 years after the original, with reprised roles for Tom Cruise (59) and Val Kilmer…
Great Tenor, shame about the bric-a-brac
Lohengrin is early, just after Tannhäuser in the cavalcade of Wagner’s masterpieces, with a swan-drawn Arthurian hero in thrall to…
The jewel-bright, mesmerisingly detailed pictures by Raqib Shaw are a revelation
Describing the Venice Biennale, like pinning down the city itself, is a practical impossibility. There is just too much of…
