Arts
Enjoyably bad-tempered: The Lock In with Jeremy Paxman reviewed
‘I used to be Mr Nasty! That was good! Mr Nasty was easy!’ Jeremy Paxman bellows at Michael Palin on…
Turn it up and feel the walls shake: John Wilson's Respighi reviewed
Grade: A The strings rear up, there’s a flash of steel from the trumpets, and ten seconds into Respighi’s Feste…
Like a never-ending episode of The Jerry Springer Show: Hillbilly Elegy reviewed
Hillbilly Elegy is an adaptation of the best-selling memoir, published in 2016, by J.D. Vance and it’s quite a story.…
Like much jazz, it might have benefited from being less solemn: BBC4's Ronnie's reviewed
Ronnie’s: Ronnie Scott and His World-Famous Jazz Club was like the TV equivalent of an authorised biography: impressively thorough, often…
As an essay in cheap comedy the show is a great success: Emilia reviewed
Emilia is a period piece about Emilia Bassano who may have been the ‘dark lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets. The writer,…
Meet the woman who designed Britain's revolutionary road signs
Laura Gascoigne meets Margaret Calvert, the designer who dragged British signposting into the modern era
The Undoing
It’s a strange prospect for strange times, the young violinist Freya Franzen on the stage of Melbourne’s Concert Hall playing…
Arthur Streeton Land of the Golden Fleece 1926
In February 1922, Princess Mary, the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary, was married in the first…
In defence of the tyrannical male maestro
Praising the grand old maestri of the podium isn’t a good look, as they say on Twitter. Conductors such as…
The journalists who scripted the golden age of Hollywood
Tanya Gold on the journalists who scripted the golden age of Hollywood
Racists will love it: National Theatre's Death of England – Delroy reviewed
Death of England: Delroy is a companion piece to Death of England, which ran in February at the NT and…
I miss the faint hiss of a spinning foot: Royal Ballet – Live reviewed
Ballet lovers driven square-eyed by a drip feed of livestreaming and archive footage have been pining for the patter of…
I’ve heard worse things — the death rattle of a close relative, for example: Kylie’s Disco reviewed
Grade: B– Uh-oh. Might have to be careful here, pull my punches a little bit. The editor is a big…
Boldly going where hundreds have gone before: Brave New Planet podcast reviewed
Since technology is developing at such light-speed pace, why does it feel so strangely slow? There is a sense that…
Did any of this actually happen? The Crown, season four, reviewed
‘We have to stop it now!’ says Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter), smoking another cigarette, obviously. She’s talking about the…
A gripping portrait: Billie reviewed
This documentary about Billie Holiday is transfixing. Not just because it’s about Billie Holiday — I am not into jazz…
Sean Connery
Sean Connery outlived all of them, those great British actors who came to such prominence in the early Sixties: Richard…
Simon Fieldhouse Mozart Statue, Vienna
Simon Fieldhouse is a Sydney- based artist who has developed a very particular area of expression. Typically, he uses watercolour…
Antony Gormley on why sculpture is far superior to painting
In an extract from their book, Antony Gormley tells Martin Gayford that the 3-D will always trump the 2-D
The Beeb could turn this script into TV gold: Howerd's End reviewed
It’s touch and go whether the theatre will survive this latest assault. Some venues have pushed back their entire programme…
Unobtrusively filmed, powerfully performed but still unsatisfying: LSO's Bluebeard reviewed
The timing couldn’t be better. Just as the gates clang shut on another national lockdown, trapping us all indefinitely with…
The shocking story of Charles and Mary Lamb: Slightly Foxed podcast reviewed
The Slightly Foxed podcast, like the quarterly and old bookshop of the same name, is almost muskily lovely. It’s the…
Tranquil, silky and serene: Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Lazuli Sky reviewed
When Carlos Acosta was named artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet in January of this year, he announced ambitious plans…
Every scene Sophia Loren isn’t in feels like a wasted one: The Life Ahead reviewed
The Life Ahead stars Sophia Loren, and if there is one reason to see The Life Ahead it is this:…
Is The Undoing properly great or just a run-of-mill thriller with a brilliant casting director?
There must be some people somewhere who vaguely know their own spouses — but if so, they don’t tend to…
