Arts
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…
Moulin Rouge
It seems an aeon ago, the press night of Moulin Rouge, on 26 November. Since then, there has been illness,…
Ralph Vaughan Williams: modernist master
He is caricatured as a populist and purveyor of ‘folky-wolky’ melodies, says Richard Bratby, but Vaughan Williams was a modernist master of uncompromising originality
A strange blend of farce and tragedy: Wild Things – Siegfried & Roy reviewed
The prestige podcasting era began in 2014, when the true-crime Serial gripped us with the ‘did-he-dunnit’ mystery of whether Adnan…
Horrifying but gripping: Netflix's The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman reviewed
It’s 1993 and you’re studying at a top agricultural college with a bright future ahead of you, perhaps in farming…
Is this the worst production of all time? Royal Court's The Glow reviewed
It’s getting silly now. London’s subsidised theatres aren’t just competing to put on the worst play of the year but…
Sounds ghastly but it's somehow riveting: The Souvenir – Part II reviewed
The Souvenir: Part II is Joanna Hogg’s follow-up to The Souvenir (2019) but it’s not your regular sequel. It’s not…
The fascination of house fronts: Where We Live at Millennium Gallery reviewed
Paintings of houses go back a long way in British art: the earliest landscape in Tate Britain is a late…
Has the whiff of Spinal Tap: Jethro Tull's The Zealot Gene reviewed
Grade: C+ I bought the ‘seminal’ Jethro Tull double album Thick as a Brickfrom a secondhand shop when I…
Don’t Look Up
How strange it is to be in a supposedly opened-up world, even as the Omicron variety of the virus shuts…
Feral showstoppers and some of the greatest paintings of the 20th century: Francis Bacon at the RA reviewed
Francis Bacon sensed our inner beastliness and painted it with astonishing power, says Martin Gayford
Disappointingly conventional and linear: BBC radio's modernism season reviewed
This week marks the beginning of modernism season on BBC Radio 3 and 4, which means it’s time for some…
Borderline soft porn but thrilling: Moulin Rouge! The Musical at Piccadilly Theatre reviewed
Moulin Rouge wins no marks for its storyline. A struggling Parisian theatre is bought out by an evil financier who…
Rojo’s choreographic updating is a visual feast: English National Ballet's Raymonda reviewed
Velvet waistcoats, technicolour tulle and some very spangly harem pants — English National Ballet’s atelier must have been mighty busy…
Unpredictable, delicious and flamboyantly stunning: Parallel Mothers reviewed
Pedro Almodovar’s latest is a film about identity, secrets, lies, buried skeletons, real and metaphorical. But what you mainly need…
An ouroboros of vacuity that is immune to its own failure: Kaws online at the Serpentine Gallery
The second most interesting thing about this digital exhibition is that it is not for art critics like me. I…
Clear, complex and gripping: Opera North's Rigoletto reviewed
Say what you like about that Duke of Mantua, but he’s basically an OK sort of bloke. A bit of…
Triumphant: Idles at the O2 Brixton Academy reviewed
The single thing you don’t want when you are beginning a run of four shows in a prestige venue, with…
Shades of Tony Soprano: BBC1's The Responder reviewed
Older readers may remember a time when people signalled their cultural superiority with the weird boast that they didn’t watch…
Jeremy Irons in House of Gucci
Any attempt to fictionalise the Gucci story runs into the same difficulties as Ridley Scott’s handsome and absorbing film, House…
