Arts
Moments of pure wonder: Folk Weekend Oxford reviewed
Has any musical moment extended its tendrils in so many unexpected directions as the English folk revival of the mid-1960s?…
Berlin
Theatre is slowly, tentatively opening up again and there’s no denying that a good play with however small a cast…
She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism
Art movements and fashions may come and go but Australians love of their impressionists seems only to grow stronger. The…
Theatre's final taboo: fun
The stage has become a pleasure-free zone in which snarling dramatists fight over their pet political causes, says Lloyd Evans
Where to start with the music of Ethel Smyth
I’m reminded of an old Irish joke. A tourist approaches a local for directions to Dublin. The local, after much…
Clever, funny and stomach-knotting: Promising Young Woman reviewed
Promising Young Woman is a rape-revenge-thriller that has already proved divisive but is a wonderfully clever, darkly funny, stomach-knotting —…
Intelligence-insulting schlock: Sky Atlantic's Your Honor reviewed
I’m really not enjoying Your Honor, the latest vehicle for Bryan Cranston to play a good man driven to the…
It's almost touching that the NFT world see itself as radical
Some things are explained so many times that they become unexplainable: we can only relate to them as something complicated…
Demi Lovato makes Taylor Swift resemble Dostoevsky
Grade: Z If you wish to experience the full hideousness of Now, of our current age, condensed into one awful…
This comedy duo should be on Netflix: General Secretary reviewed
General Secretary is a new drama with a dull title and an off-putting poster. A pair of angry women in…
An awesome and hilarious display: Rambert's Rooms reviewed
Social distancing continues to put the kibosh on large-scale productions, but Jo Stromgren has a nifty workaround in Rooms, which…
A Murder of Crows
Sometimes a crime show on TV turns into something higher and better, a transfigured thing. The Victim, from Scotland, falls…
Opera on the Harbour: La Traviata
These days, you’d need to be as game as Ned Kelly to run an opera company. It’s a chancy enough…
It's impossible not to feel snooty watching ITV's Agatha and Poirot
Agatha and Poirot was one of those programmes that had the annoying effect of making you feel distinctly snooty. ITV’s…
Refreshingly unfettered: LRB Podcast's Close Readings on Patricia Highsmith
I’d forgotten what a rich and deep and characterful voice John le Carré had. Listening to author and lawyer Philippe…
Can VR help to sell art to kids?
Some pictures are now so mediated that their actual physicality has long been dwarfed by a million reproductions. The ‘Mona…
A fantastic online show of Euripides's take on Helen of Troy
Everyone knows Helen of Troy. The feckless sex popsicle betrayed her husband, Menelaus, and ran off with the dashing Paris,…
The Mozarts of ad music
Richard Bratby meets the hidden men and women composing melodies to make you buy
The songs are still as fresh and appetising as a hot loaf: The Lightning Seeds livestream reviewed
One thing about a streamed festival is that the toilets are better than at the real thing. The other thing,…
Riveting and heartbreaking: Sound of Metal reviewed
The multi-Oscar-nominated Sound of Metalstars Riz Ahmed as a heavy-metal drummer whose life is in freefall after losing his hearing.…
La Streep
It’s one of those secrets that we keep even from ourselves that great acting, everything that we know in terms…
Boy Swallows Universe
It is difficult not to be irritated by the preoccupations of the funded state theatre companies. They seem to be…
Zippy and stylish, with a glint of mischief: William Forsythe’s The Barre Project reviewed
In the early Noughties there was a Hollywood subgenre (by which I mean a few cult movies, each with terrible…
The first-century saint who went viral
Laura Freeman considers how artists have depicted one of the strangest and most touching of the Stations of the Cross
If you want a play that brings girls into science, commission a man: Jina and the STEM Sisters reviewed
Jina and the STEM Sisters is a blatant act of propaganda. And its intentions are excellent. This is a musical…
