Arts
Boldly and brilliantly unoriginal: Kermode and Mayo’s Take reviewed
Last April Fools’ Day, Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo wound up their award-winning film review show on BBC Radio 5…
I’m not sure they ever reached a fourth chord: Spiritualized, at the Roundhouse, reviewed
Every so often, Jason Pierce drifts into focus. It happened at the end of the 1980s, when his then group…
Quietly devastating: Benediction reviewed
Terence Davies’s Benediction is a biopic of the first world war poet Siegfried Sassoon told with great feeling and tenderness.…
Even Nelsons’s miscalculations are fascinating: Leipzig Gewandhaus/Andris Nelsons, at the Barbican, reviewed
Imagine growing up with a whole orchestra as your plaything. Richard Strauss’s father was the principal horn of the Munich…
The playwright seems curiously detached about rape: The Breach, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed
Hampstead’s latest play is a knotty rape drama by Naomi Wallace set in Kentucky. Four teenagers with weird names meet…
The nightmare of making films about poets
Craig Raine on the challenges of translating poets’ lives and work to the screen
A gentle soap opera with nudity and book chat: Conversations with Friends reviewed
It’s official: television has a new genre. Its features include leisurely half-hour episodes, plenty of literary chat, several scenes set…
A dramatic dream of Australia
1922 is the wonder year of twentieth century literature, the so-called annus mirabilis: T.S. Eliot published The Waste Land, James…
Enjoyably plummy and male: Battleground – The Falklands War podcast reviewed
The Battlegroundpodcast on the wars of the 20th century, said presenter Saul David happily, ‘will have lots of bombs and…
Schlock: Everything Everywhere All At Once reviewed
We’re doing multiverses now. Last weekend, a friend dragged me to see Marvel’s latest product, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse…
The best TV spy drama since Smiley’s People: Apple TV+'s Slow Horses reviewed
How thriller writers must miss the Cold War! Early John le Carré and Len Deighton had it easy when trying…
Artist, actor, social justice warrior, serial killer: the many faces of Walter Sickert
Artist, actor, social justice warrior, serial killer. Laura Gascoigne on the many faces of Walter Sickert
Too affectionate, not enough cruelty: Don Pasquale, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed
There are many things to enjoy in the Royal Opera’s revival of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, but perhaps the most surprising…
A joy – mostly: Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, at Usher Hall, reviewed
Drummers are patient chaps, in the main. Think of Ringo in Peter Jackson’s recent Beatles docuseries, Get Back. Lolling around…
Two hours of bickering from a couple of doughnut-shaped crybabies: Middle, at the Dorfman Theatre, reviewed
‘I fink I doan luv yew any maw.’ A marital bust-up drama at the National Theatre opens with a whining…
Life from both sides now
It’s a strange thing the way we keep interpreting and re-interpreting the different aspects of our culture that have become…
Should have been even longer with less gore: The Northman reviewed
In Rus, which we now call Ukraine, Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard) begins his pursuit of revenge. A sea captain who later…
Why I booed Birtwistle
Keith Burstein recalls a key moment in the battle for emancipation from the ivory tower of atonalism
Fascinating exhibitions – clunky editorialising: Breaking the News at the British Library reviewed
In The Spectator office’s toilets there are framed front covers of the events that didn’t happen: Corbyn beats Boris; ‘Here’s…
A podcast with real emotional heft: Philippa Perry’s Siblings in Session reviewed
Have you ever taken a piece of advice? I’m not asking a rhetorical question. Have you ever once in your…
Lacks the bite and bracing malevolence of Call My Agent!: Amazon's Ten Percent reviewed
In theory, it should be a perfect match. John Morton – the man behind the brilliantly assured sitcom W1A which…
Angry diatribes and amusing pranks: Donmar Warehouse's Marys Seacole reviewed
The title of the Donmar’s new effort, Marys Seacole, appears to be a misprint and that makes the reader look…
The perfect pop star: Dua Lipa at the O2 Arena reviewed
Dua Lipa’s second album, Future Nostalgia, was released at the least promising moment possible: 27 March 2020, the day after…
Anatomy of a forgettable scandal
An evening of shorts, courtesy of Flickerfest, even at a lustrous cinema like the Kino in the Sofitel complex off…
Evocative tribute to the orphaned caped crusader: Superheroes, Orphans & Origins at the Foundling Museum reviewed
Instead of wasting money, like other museums, on extravagant architectural statements, the Foundling Museum in Brunswick Square has sensibly chosen…
