Arts
Perfection: The Duke reviewed
The Duke is an old-fashioned British comedy caper that is plainly lovely and a joy. Based on a true story,…
Swings between violence and comedy: Pina Bausch's Kontakthof, at Sadler's Wells, reviewed
When you take in the richness of a Pina Bausch production — the redolent staging, the eloquent, eccentric twists of…
A beautiful, frustrating bore: Florian Zeller's The Forest, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed
The Forest is the latest thriller from the French dramatist Florian Zeller, translated by Oscar winner Christopher Hampton. It’s a…
If you like First Dates, you'll love This is Dating
The tagline of This is Dating, a new podcast from across the pond, is ‘Come for the cringe, stay for…
Deserves to become an ENO staple: The Cunning Little Vixen reviewed
Spoiler alert. The last words in Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen come from a child playing a frog. The story…
How good is he? Pissarro: Father of Impressionism, at the Ashmolean Museum, reviewed
Two markers: ‘Cottages at Auvers-sur-Oise’ (c.1873) is a sweet especial rural scene of faintly slovenly thatched cottages with, at its…
Die Walküre
Chesterton said – and the poet Peter Porter loved to repeat – that if a thing was worth doing it…
May put you off Chaplin for ever: The Real Charlie Chaplin reviewed
Charlie Chaplin is one of the most famous movie stars ever and is certainly the most famous movie star with…
All a bit Blackadder: Hamlet, at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, reviewed
Never Not Once has a cold and forbidding title but it starts as an amusing tale set in an LA…
Expectations were met and then exceeded: Arooj Aftab, at Celtic Connections, reviewed
We gathered on a freezing Sunday night, inside a barrel-vaulted church designed in the 1890s by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, to…
Pretty astonishing: Black Country, New Road's Ants From Up There reviewed
Grade: A+ It is not true, fellow boomers, that there is nothing new under the sun nor no good new…
Old-school excess, star power and spectacle: Royal Opera's Tosca reviewed
London felt like its old self on Friday night. Possibly it was just me; when you visit the capital once…
Part-gothic horror, part-Acorn Antiques: Louise Bourgeois, at the Hayward Gallery, reviewed
Louise Bourgeois was 62 and recently widowed when she first used soft materials in her installation ‘The Destruction of the…
Amusing and entertaining – though not very taxing: Amazon Prime's Reacher reviewed
Jack Reacher is back on the screen and aficionados of the hugely successful Lee Child airport thrillers in which he…
Stupendous: The World of Stonehenge at the British Museum reviewed
Christopher Howse is bowled over by the astonishingartefacts in the British Museum’s Stonehenge exhibition
Glorious and bracing interrogation of the world's smartest people: Conversations with Tyler reviewed
Tyler Cowen is a man who leaves you at once in awe and perturbed. He is the Holbert L. Harris…
Grace
Does anyone know where we are in the world of arts and entertainment as Omicron advances, boosters abound, RATS are…
The medical equivalent of The Responder: BBC1's This is Going to Hurt reviewed
According to the makers, This is Going to Hurt is intended as ‘a love letter to the national health service’.…
Staggeringly confident and powerful: After Love reviewed
As there are no stand-out films this week aside from Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Death on the Nile — is…
The dark world of illness influencers
I have heartburn. I probably have heartburn simply because both my parents also had a lot of heartburn, and I…
One of the most exciting hours I’ve spent in ages: Turnstile at O2 Forum Kentish Town
Even leaving aside its origins as prison slang, punk has always meant different things on either side of the Atlantic.…
A tangle of nonsense from the sloppy Caryl Churchill: A Number, at the Old Vic, reviewed
A Number, by Caryl Churchill, is a sci-fi drama of impenetrable complexity. It’s set in a future society where cloning…
Astonishing and gripping: Van Gogh's Self Portraits at the Courtauld reviewed
In September 1889, Vincent van Gogh sent his brother Theo a new self-portrait from the mental hospital at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. ‘You…
The art of the high street
Daisy Dunn on the painters who celebrate shop fronts
Turns Handel into a Netflix thriller: Royal Opera's Theodora reviewed
The Royal Opera has come over all baroque. In the Linbury Theatre, they’re hosting Irish National Opera’s production of Vivaldi’s…
