Arts
Who should win the Stirling Prize?
The Stirling Prize is the Baftas for architects, a moment for auto-erotic self-congratulation. Awarded by the Royal Institute of British…
My night with the worst kind of nostalgia
American Football are a band whose legend was formed by the internet: some Illinois college kids who made an album…
Tragedy and lighter things
Noni Hazlehurst’s performance in Daniel Keene’s The Mother is a thing of wonder and terror, overwhelming in its power and…
Easy-on-the-eye tosh: Netflix’s The Perfect Couple reviewed
The Perfect Couple is an exemplar of that genre sometimes cynically known as ‘poverty programming’: dramas that train all of…
When is anyone going to properly appreciate what critics have to go through?
The Critic is a period drama starring Ian McKellen as a newspaper theatre critic famed for his savagery and it…
The rise of soapy, dead-safe drama: The Band Back Together reviewed
The Band Back Together is a newish play, written and directed by Barney Norris, which succeeds wildly on its own…
How Michael Craig-Martin changed a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree
‘Of all the things I’ve drawn,’ Michael Craig-Martin reflects, ‘to me chairs are one of the most interesting.’ We are…
Elvis Costello remains the most fascinating songwriter Britain has produced in the past 50 years
Song for song, line by line, blow for blow, Elvis Costello remains the most consistently fascinating songwriter Britain has produced…
How Berlin nearly broke Bowie
This week’s Archive on 4 is a treat for David Bowie fans. Francis Whately, the producer behind several of the…
The problem with Klaus Makela
Klaus Makela is kind of a big deal. He’s a pupil of the Finnish conducting guru Jorma Panula – the…
Purring with cynical affection
It’s one of those weird paradoxes of history that we think of the Elizabethan era as the zenith of our…
A lively showcase for a great central European orchestra at the Proms
As the Proms season enters the home straight, it’s moved up a gear, with a string of high profile European…
Dazzling: Stoppard’s The Real Thing, at the Old Vic, reviewed
The Real Thing at the Old Vic is a puzzling beast. And well worth seeing. Director Max Webster sets the…
Delightful: Phoenix, at All Points East, reviewed
A few years ago, my nephew informed me that he and his friend were planning to come up to London…
Why has Leonora Carrington still not had a big exhibition?
‘It had nothing to endow it with the title of studio at all,’ was Edward James’s first impression of Leonora…
A historical abomination: Firebrand reviewed
Firebrand is a period drama about Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr. It is sumptuously photographed – it’s…
Charming and silly: Sam & Max – The Devil’s Playhouse reviewed
Grade: B Readers of a certain age (mine, roughly) may have fond memories of 1993’s Sam & Max Hit the…
Sick, cynical and irresistible: Netflix’s Kaos reviewed
Kaos is a new Netflix gods-and-monsters black-comedy blockbuster that will scorch your screen and fry your brain like a thunderbolt…
How claims of cultural appropriation scuppered an acclaimed new ballet
On 14 March 2020 I was at Leeds Grand Theatre for the première of Northern Ballet’s Geisha. The curtains swung…
Zany streak of British humour
The fact that Kip Williams is leaving the Sydney Theatre Company to stage The Picture of Dorian Gray with Sarah…
Must-watch TV: Apple TV+’s Pachinko reviewed
Pachinko is like an extended version of the Monty Python ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch (‘I used to have to get out…
The unstoppable rise of stage amplification
Recent acquisition of some insanely expensive hearing aids aimed at helping me out in cacophonous restaurants has set me thinking…
Artistically embarrassing but a hit: Shifters, at Duke of York’s Theatre, reviewed
Shifters has transferred to the West End from the Bush Theatre. It opens at a granny’s funeral attended by the…
In praise of one of the great avant-garde trolls of cinema
The most important thing to know about the filmmaker and writer Marguerite Duras is that she was a total drunk.…
The Stockhausen work that is worth braving
Grade: A- One of the best one-liners attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham refers to the stridently avant-garde Karlheinz Stockhausen: ‘I’ve…
