Arts
An impeccably rule-observing programme from the BBC: Art That Made Us reviewed
Art That Made Us is an ambitious new series, firmly in the ‘history of something in a load of different…
Mighty and majestic
There is nothing like a ghastly war, an inscrutable election and a great rush of entertainment high and low to…
Why is dance so butch these days?
For an art form that once boldly set out to question conventional divisions of gender, ballet now seems to be…
Raphael – saint or hustler?
Laura Gascoigne dishes the dirt on Raphael
Didn't deserve an Oscar: Coda reviewed
This year the Oscar for best film went to the drama Coda– ‘Child of Deaf Adults’ – but the ceremony…
If you want to avoid intrusive anachronisms on TV, you have to go foreign
The iron law of TV these days is that if you want to avoid series that are suffocatingly right-on the…
No one should be doing indie rock at 43: Band of Horses's Things Are Great reviewed
Grade: B That thing, ‘indie rock’, is so well played and produced these days, so pristine and flawless, that it…
A play for bureaucrats: David Hare's Straight Line Crazy reviewed
It’s good of Nicholas Hytner to let Londoners see David Hare’s new play before it travels to Broadway where it…
Pitch-black satire drenched in an atmosphere of compelling unease: ETO's Golden Cockerel reviewed
Blame it on Serge Diaghilev. Rimsky-Korsakov died in 1908 and never saw the première of his last opera, The Golden…
A darkened stage lights up
An American in Paris was always a stage musical waiting to happen even though it is immemorially associated with Gene…
Relentless and shouty: BBC2's Then Barbara met Alan reviewed
BBC2’s one-off drama Then Barbara Met Alan(Monday) told the true story of how two disabled performers on the cabaret circuit…
It’s years since I saw anything as nasty as this: Cock at the Ambassadors Theatre reviewed
Cock was written by Mike Bartlett in 2009 while he was in Mexico at a drama conference. The title suggests…
Keith Allen discusses Pinter, Max Bygraves and the sensitivities of contemporary audiences
Lloyd Evans talks to Keith Allen about Max Bygraves, how he fell into acting and the sensitivities of contemporary audiences
Fails to dispel the biggest myth of all: Whitechapel Gallery's A Century of the Artist’s Studio reviewed
Picture the artist’s studio: if what comes to mind is the romantic image of a male painter at his easel…
Comes so close to greatness but succumbs to prejudice: Royal Opera's Peter Grimes reviewed
No question, the Royal Opera is on a roll. Just look at the cast list alone for Deborah Warner’s new…
See this Russian hip hop star before they arrest him: Oxxxymiron's Beauty & Ugliness reviewed
Grade: A+ I was going to review hyperpop chanteuse Charli XCX’s album this week, but it was such boring, meretricious,…
Why we drink
‘I like to have a martini,/ Two at the very most./ After three I’m under the table,/ After four I’m…
You will feel nothing: The Worst Person in the World reviewed
The Worst Person in the World is a Norwegian film that has made a big splash. To date, its star…
Not worth the price of admission
There are moments when you wish the theatre would just be swallowed up and be as if it had never…
The psychopath who wrecked New York
Robert Gore-Langton on the man who wrecked New York
A must-see for Westminster obsessives: Riverside Studios' Bloody Difficult Women reviewed
Bloody Difficult Women is a documentary drama by the popular journalist Tim Walker, which looks at the similarities between Gina…
Liam Scarlett's enduring legacy: Royal Ballet's Swan Lake reviewed
Without fanfare or apology, the Royal Ballet appears to have rehabilitated Liam Scarlett, but what a tragic balls-up it has…
Felt like being caught on the moors in a storm: Keeley Forsyth, at the Barbican, reviewed
It took a moment to realise Keeley Forsyth was there. There were already three musicians, faint figures on a dark…
Spot-on in almost every way: Scottish Opera's A Midsummer Night’s Dream reviewed
Scottish Opera’s new production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems to open in midwinter. Snow falls, fairies hurl snowballs…
Fun, good-natured and schmaltzy: Phantom of the Open reviewed
Phantom of the Open is a comedy-drama telling a true story that would have to be true as no one…
