Arts
This interactive Doctor Who show is as bombastic, fey and tedious as the TV series
Death of a Black Man is a little-known script from the 1970s written by Alfred Fagon who suffered a fatal…
A new concerto draws cheers in Liverpool: RLPO/Hindoyan reviewed
There was no printed programme for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s first concert under its music director designate Domingo Hindoyan.…
First-rate TV: Clarkson's Farm on Amazon Prime reviewed
I was at a party the other day when who should accost me but Jeremy Clarkson. There were lots more…
The joys of musical comfort food
I’ve given up comfort food. I’m trying to shift lockdown pounds that have left me with the physique of the…
The worst idea ever for a podcast – and it's great: Our Struggle reviewed
Our hosts are Lauren and Drew and they want to talk about Karl Ove Knausgaard. Or rather, they want to…
Tucci and Firth are like Eric and Ernie but sexier: Supernova reviewed
At the time Supernova went into production one headline read: ‘What did we do to deserve a love story starring…
GB News will succeed – even if it fails
Help! If I’m too kind to GB News, my bosses at LBC will be cross as the channel nicked their…
Andrea Riseborough
National Treasure is a remarkable piece of TV drama, and it looks for a long, bewildering moment like a masterpiece.…
Divine Vinyl Survives
Two weeks ago, a fire broke out at the Universal Studios in Hollywood, 13 years to the day after another…
Blissfully colourful, fun and basic: In The Heights reviewed
In The Heights is an adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash-hit stage musical — the one he wrote before Hamilton —…
The promoter the critics love to hate: an interview with Raymond Gubbay
Richard Bratby talks to one of Britain’s most successful impresarios about his promoter’s nose, Arts Council spinelessness and ENO madness
Godot Is a Woman will have you laughing all evening and arguing all night
Godot Is a Woman opens with three tramps standing on a bare stage beneath a solitary upright. This isn’t Samuel…
How Trojan Records conquered the world
When Trojan Records attempted to break into the United States music market in the early 1970s, it hit an insurmountable…
The best podcasts to be enjoyed at 4 a.m.
Now that all of the billionaires are going into space, the night sky holds a special new kind of allure.…
Covid has been great for drawing
Amid the greatly exaggerated reports of the death of painting issued and reissued over the course of the past century,…
One of the best Covid dramas so far: BBC2's Together reviewed
Let me start with a spot of admin: if you’re wondering what The Speccie makes of GB News, it’ll be…
Dylan
Bob Dylan turned 80 the other week. Does that seem to consign not just the vanished twentieth century but the…
Festival music in Townsville
For those music lovers who can travel, the prospect of a festival in Townsville in mid-winter is an alluring one.…
Two hours of kitsch tomfoolery: Amélie at the Criterion reviewed
The latest movie to turn into a musical is Amélie, from 2001, about a Parisian do-gooder or ‘godmother of the…
Annoying but good: Black Midi's Cavalcade reviewed
Grade: A– Imagine a really disgusting and immoral scientific experiment in which the members of Weather Report, the Mahavishnu Orchestra,…
Anthony Hopkins's portrayal of dementia will undo you: The Father reviewed
The Father is an immensely powerful film about dementia starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, who was asleep in his bed in…
The clichés of Israeli TV are far more bearable than ours
Tragically it wasn’t my turn to review when Channel 5’s groundbreaking Anne Boleyn came out so you’ll never find out…
Lush, elegant and vivid: Der Rosenkavalier at Garsington reviewed
At the turning point of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Der Rosenkavalier, all the clocks stop. Octavian has arrived…
A new recording throws fresh light on Mahler's puzzling Tenth Symphony
There are many Symphonies No. 10 by Gustav Mahler, or none. The situation is rare, if not unique, in the…
At last some genuine gala material: Royal Ballet's Balanchine and Robbins reviewed
The OED defines ‘gala’ as ‘a festive occasion’. In the ballet world this usually translates as a handful of stars,…
