Arts

Theatres can now reopen – but they will resemble prison camps

1 August 2020 9:00 am

Auditoriums can now reopen — but they will resemble prison camps, says Lloyd Evans

The real Rupert Murdoch, by Kelvin MacKenzie

1 August 2020 9:00 am

The BBC documentary on Rupert Murdoch is pure one-sided bile, says Kelvin MacKenzie

An extraordinary debut: Make Up reviewed

1 August 2020 9:00 am

Make Up is the first full-length film from writer–director Claire Oakley, set in an out-of-season holiday park on the Cornish…

Language notes

25 July 2020 9:00 am

One of the most intriguing expressions to come out of the pandemic so far is ‘deep cleaning’. We read that…

Pierre Soulages

25 July 2020 9:00 am

A French painting purchased in Melbourne in 1953 has been repatriated selling for $5.26m earlier this month in Paris. For…

Why I love French telly

25 July 2020 9:00 am

There’s a scene in the French espionage series The Bureau — about the DGSE, France’s equivalent of the CIA or…

RSC’s Merchant of Venice is full of puzzling ornaments and accents

25 July 2020 9:00 am

The BBC announces Merchant of Venice as if it were a Hollywood blockbuster. ‘In the melting pot of Venice, trade…

The problem with livestreaming heavy metal? No moshpits

25 July 2020 9:00 am

There was only so long anyone could put up with the live musical performances of the early days of lockdown:…

Louis Theroux’s podcast reveals a master at work

25 July 2020 9:00 am

I always want to know more about Louis Theroux, which is odd, since I’ve seen so much of him already.…

Worth catching the virus for: Saint Frances reviewed

25 July 2020 9:00 am

Two films about young women this week, one at the cinema, if you dare, and one to stream, if you…

Model villages aren't just for kids

25 July 2020 9:00 am

Model villages deliver a cheerful jolt to unexamined notions about our own place – and size – in the world, says Richard Bratby

The artistic response to the pandemic has so far been mind-numbingly banal

25 July 2020 9:00 am

Travelling around Latin America three years ago, Stephen Chambers was attracted by pharmacy signs with pictograms advertising treatments to illiterate…

Mystery portrait

18 July 2020 9:00 am

Shortly after moving to Manhattan in the noughties I was strolling through the West Village when I came across a…

David Hockney A closer winter tunnel, February-March 2006

18 July 2020 9:00 am

The National Gallery of Victoria has closed again ‘until further notice’. The rest of the country is more fortunate, at…

James Graham's small new drama is exquisite: BBC Four's Unprecedented reviewed

18 July 2020 9:00 am

Let’s face it. Theatre via the internet is barely theatre. It takes a huge amount of creativity and inventiveness to…

The best podcasts for all your corona-gardening needs

18 July 2020 9:00 am

The American diet was probably at its healthiest in the second world war. Fearing interruption to supply chains, Washington launched…

Held me so fast I was outbid on eBay: Clemency reviewed

18 July 2020 9:00 am

Clemency stars Alfre Woodard as a prison warden on death row whose job is beginning to take its toll, and…

The guileful, soulful art of Khadija Saye

18 July 2020 9:00 am

Gwyneth Paltrow has a new neighbour. On the same block in Notting Hill as Gwynie’s Goop store, with its This…

Beethoven 32 piano sonatas were his musical laboratory – here are the best recordings

18 July 2020 9:00 am

If you want to understand Beethoven, listen to his piano sonatas. Without them, you’ll never grasp how the same man…

Drive-in cinemas are back – but for how long?

18 July 2020 9:00 am

Tanya Gold on the rise and fall of drive-in cinema

Michaela Coel's dazzling finale reminds me of Philip Roth: I May Destroy You reviewed

18 July 2020 9:00 am

It might seem a bit of a stretch to see deep similarities between Michaela Coel (young, female, black and currently…

Relief

11 July 2020 9:00 am

Recently I touched on the subject of evaluating works of art prompted by what seemed to me rather an empty…

Jessie Traill: A biography

11 July 2020 9:00 am

She could have been one of our great-aunts. She was from that remarkable generation of educated, unmarried women who chose…

Portrait of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic – Britain's oldest and ballsiest orchestra

11 July 2020 9:00 am

Richard Bratby on Britain’s oldest and ballsiest orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, which has taken on everyone from gang leaders to Derek Hatton

Ranges from the slight to the first-rate: Neil Young’s Homegrown reviewed

11 July 2020 9:00 am

Grade: B+ Neil Young has been mining his own past very profitably for a long time now, disinterring a seemingly…