Arts
The death of the mainstream band: Black Country, New Road reviewed
Twitter was awash with mockery last week, after Adam Levine, the singer of the American group Maroon 5, was interviewed…
Grotesquely plodding: Late Night Staring At High Res Pixels reviewed
The Finborough’s new show is a love story with the male partner absent. Two women, one Irish and one American,…
Undemandingly enjoyable (just don’t read the episode’s title): McDonald & Dodds review
Well, this a bit awkward. A fortnight ago, in my last TV column, I confidently asserted that, despite the involvement…
The truth about my father, Philip Guston
Musa Mayer talks to Hermione Eyre about her father Philip Guston’s cancellation and her fear that he will for ever be known as the artist who painted the Ku Klux Klan
Three new releases that show the classical recording industry is alive and well
Rachmaninov’s First Symphony begins with a snarl, and gets angrier. A menacing skirl from the woodwinds, a triple-fortissimo blast from…
Clubhouse left me with one question: why am I here?
For my 13th birthday in 1995 I requested — and got — my own ‘line’. This meant that I could…
Barack Obama will make you cringe: Renegades: Born in the USA reviewed
Barack Obama wants the world to know how much he loves singing. In his new podcast, which takes the form…
The best film of the year: Judas and the Black Messiah reviewed
Judas and the Black Messiah is a biopic about Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, but it’s not your regular biopic…
Christopher Plummer
A few weeks ago that great Canadian actor Christopher Plummer died. Everyone knows him as Captain Von Trapp opposite Julie…
Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London
Saint Zenobius was a Florentine nobleman who was converted to Christianity and baptised as an adult, ultimately becoming the first…
It'll please small kids, but they're never to be trusted: Raya and the Last Dragon reviewed
Raya and the Last Dragon has everything you might want nowadays from a major Disney film — feisty kick-ass heroine,…
Unhappy blend of melodrama and allegory: Southwark Playhouse’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice reviewed
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a musical fantasy set in a Nordic town near the Arctic circle. Johan is a magician…
Claudia Winkleman’s new Radio 2 show gets off to a brainless start
Last Saturday on Radio 2 Claudia Winkleman was inaugurated as the host of what was formerly Graham Norton’s mid-morning spot.…
Astonishing, relentlessly pleasurable rediscovery – tantric opera: Luigi Rossi's Il Palazzo incantato reviewed
I don’t say this lightly, but after 20 years of opera-going, Luigi Rossi’s Il Palazzo incantato might just be the…
How stupid do the script writers of Sky’s Devils think we are?
Here’s a worried question I want to plant in your head: when is TV drama going to start depicting the…
How Algernon Newton made great art out of empty streets and dingy canals
Quite late in life Walter Sickert paid his first visit to Peckham Rye. He was excited, apparently, because he had…
In Chet Baker's albums you can hear America’s romantic self-image curdling
The thing to remember about Chet Baker, an old acquaintance says of the errant jazz musician in Deep In A…
The triumph of bedroom pop
A short history of lo-fi, by Robert Barry
Anne-Marie Duff
Melbourne was just stirring into public cultural life when the hotel quarantine mishap led to that last alarming lockdown that…
Australian Love Stories: Celebrating love in all its guises at the NPG
The National Portrait Gallery seems to be floundering. That may be unfair but the announcement of the next exhibition left…
Perfect English songs in fresh new colours: Roderick Williams sings Butterworth
Another week, another online concert; and since orchestral music seems likely to be confined to screens and stereos for a…
Even Adrian Lester's sweetness, grace and nobility can't rescue Almeida's Hymn
The Almeida is fighting back against lockdown with a sprawling family drama about two long-lost siblings. Adrian Lester plays Gilbert…
Why I'm obsessed with this podcast's merciless little romps: Browned Off reviewed
Everything is too long these days, isn’t it? Every series is at least two episodes too long, podcasts go on…
'I like upsetting people': Steven Wilson interviewed
Michael Hann talks to the cult rock star Steven Wilson about why it’s harder to write a pop song than prog
Contains nothing you couldn't get from Wikipedia or YouTube: Netflix's Pelé reviewed
Pelé is a two-hour documentary about the great Brazilian footballer — the greatest footballer ever, some would say — who…
