Arts
Gripping high gothic psychological horror: Saint Maud reviewed
Saint Maud is a first feature from writer-director Rose Glass and it’s being billed as a horror film. But it’s…
Why great speeches are made for stage and screen
Curious thing, writer’s block. If you believe it exists. Terry Pratchett didn’t. ‘There’s no such thing,’ he said. ‘It was…
Why did Balakirev's beautiful, inventive works go out of fashion?
Anyone who invited the Russian composer Mily Balakirev to dinner had to be jolly careful about the fish they served.…
Agnes Wales
Something is going on with Agnes Wales. Is it possible that the current board of trustees of the Art Gallery…
V. Namatjira Stand strong for who you are
It is a name deeply imbedded in Australia’s cultural memory. Albert Namatjira’s (1902-1957) was a prolific and immensely popular watercolour…
Enjoyable but hardly classic Alan Bennett: The Outside Dog & The Hand of God reviewed
The season of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads continues at the Bridge. In The Hand of God we meet Celia, a…
The sound of pop eating itself and throwing up: A.G. Cook’s Apple reviewed
Grade: A The future, then. The sound of pop eating itself, throwing up into a bag and then getting a…
The rise of blocked-off design
Plexiglass bubbles hover over diners’ heads in restaurants. Plastic pods, spaced six feet apart, separate weightlifters in gyms. Partitions of…
Sick, puerile, inappropriate and delicious: Amazon Prime's The Boys reviewed
There’s a delicious scene in the new season of Amazon’s superheroes-gone-bad series The Boys. The chief superhero Homelander (Antony Starr)…
Spectacular and mind-expanding: Tantra at the British Museum reviewed
A great temple of the goddess Tara can be found at Tarapith in West Bengal. But her true abode, in…
One zinger after another – but it’ll leave you cold: Trial of the Chicago 7 reviewed
Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 — don’t worry, you haven’t missed six earlier films — is a…
I don’t know when I’ve been more moved: Ora Singers at Tate Modern reviewed
It’s the breath I miss most. The moment when a shuffling group of men and women in scruffy concert blacks…
The most important book on black Britishness has one flaw: its author was white
Can people of one race really understand the experience of another? asks Colin Grant
Stuck at home with a serial killer
It’s odd when you think of the way television has usurped almost everything else in the time of the virus.…
How on earth did Harold Pinter and Danny Dyer become such good friends?
Collectors of TV titles that sound as if they were thought of by Alan Partridge will presumably have spotted Danny…
More mimsy soft rock from Cat Stevens: Tea for the Tillerman 2 reviewed
Grade: B– Time has been kind to Cat Stevens’s reputation — his estrangement from the music business and rad BAME…
Brilliantly performed twaddle: Old Vic’s Faith Healer reviewed
The Old Vic refuses to reopen. Director Matthew Warchus says the social distancing rules make it impossible for him to…
Would be much better without Bill or Ted: Bill & Ted Face the Music reviewed
I think I am supposed to say that Bill & Ted Face the Music, the third in a franchise about…
I pounded my car horn like a Neapolitan cabbie: ENO's drive-in Bohème reviewed
The email from English National Opera was blunt: ‘Your arrival time is 18.25. If you arrive outside your allocated time…
The mediums who pioneered abstract art
The mediumistic art of various cranks, crackpots and old dowagers is finally being taken seriously – and about time too, says Laura Gascoigne
As immersive art goes, nothing can compete with Berghain
In Geoff Dyer’s Jeff in Venice, the protagonist, at the Venice Biennale, muses on installations. ‘Ideally, the perfect art installation…
Does Rada seriously believe George Bernard Shaw was an Irish Mengele?
What has happened to Rada? The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is the latest arts establishment to have gone mad.…
Diana Rigg
It was sad the other day to hear of the passing of that scintillating lady of stage and screen Diana…
Sheku Kanneh-Mason
The world became aware of Sheku Kanneh-Mason when he played the cello at the wedding of Harry and Meghan Sussex…
Affectionate and unthreatening, just like usual: Last Night of the Proms reviewed
The Last Night of the Proms came and went, and it was pretty much as anyone might have predicted, if…
