Arts
Wendy Bowman, 2019 by David Darcy Darling Portrait Prize 2020
She is not a theoretical or idealogical environmentalist. Wendy Bowman became an activist when her crops were ruined by polluted…
A documentary about the M25 that will make your heart soar
When a 90-minute documentary is introduced with the words ‘This is the M25’, you’d be within your rights not to…
Culture is going underground: meet the rebel army
Leaf Arbuthnot and Igor Toronyi-Lalic on the new cultural rebels
Dysfunctional music for dysfunctional people: The Public Image is Rotten reviewed
A star is born, but instead of emerging into the world beaming for the cameras, he spits and snarls and…
Chaotic, if good-natured, muddle: Hytner’s Midsummer Night’s Dream reviewed
Nicholas Hytner’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens in a world of puritanical austerity. The cast wear sombre black costumes and…
Why haven’t podcasts cracked the recipe for audio drama?
In Beeb-dominated Britain, the commercial triumph of podcasting — epitomised by Spotify’s recent £100 million deals with Joe Rogan and…
Fascinatingly weird – but not satisfyingly weird: Herzog’s Family Romance LLC reviewed
In the past Werner Herzog has given us a man pushing a ship up a mountain, a 16th-century conquistador going…
I wish John Chamberlain was still around to crush this hideous toothpaste-blue Ferrari
For three months art lovers have had nothing but screens to look at. As one New York dealer complained to…
Keith Urban using a Maton guitar, recording Gimme Shelter in Olympic Studios, London
We are critical of ourselves for not designing or manufacturing things any more. Well, there is a contrary example in…
Pointless but beautiful – and good for going to sleep to: Monument Valley reviewed
I was going to write about Monument Valley, and I suppose I will eventually, but first I have to write…
Why is Robert Burton’s masterpiece Anatomy of Melancholy being sold as self-help?
The BBC has been having a good pandemic. Stuck at home, a generation raised on podcasts and YouTube has discovered…
The festivalisation of TV
Televising Glastonbury has changed the festival, and in turn transformed television, says Graeme Thomson
I didn’t expect to be so moved – galleries reopen
I’m in Mayfair and I’m boarding an airplane. Or rather, I’m boarding an approximation of an airplane. In the centre…
Not nul points but it’s no Spinal Tap: Eurovision Song Contest – The Story of Fire Saga reviewed
This comedy stars Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams as an Icelandic duo whose biggest dream is to represent their country…
Sensual and silky: the Royal Ballet returns to Covent Garden
Wayne McGregor’s Morgen! and Frederick Ashton’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits are the first pieces of live dance — streamed…
Paapa Essiedu is a dazzling, all-encompassing prince: RSC’s Hamlet reviewed
The Beeb has released Simon Godwin’s Hamlet staged by the RSC in 2016. The director makes one major change and…
Contains the loveliest new song I've heard in decades: Bob Dylan's new album reviewed
Grade: A ‘Rough’ in terms of the mostly spoken vocals, but only ‘rowdy’ if you’re approaching your 80th birthday, which…
Pure poison: BBC1’s Talking Heads reviewed
The big mistake people make with Alan Bennett is to conflate him with his fellow Yorkshireman David Hockney. But whereas…
Laughing Child by John Brack
In a futile attempt at participating in the current cultural revolution, I tried to suffer ‘harm and offence’ from an…
From Hogarth to Mardi Gras: the best art podcasts
If you study History of Art, people generally assume you’re a nice, conscientious, plummy-voiced girl. Sometimes, people are right. It…
The statue-topplers are obsessed with white men and white history
The statue-topplers reveal a Eurocentric view of the world that ignores the achievements of black and Asian luminaries, says Tanjil Rashid
In defence of Prince’s late style
In 1992 Prince released a single called ‘My Name Is Prince’. On first hearing it seemed appropriately regal. Cocky, even.…
A true story that never feels true: Resistance reviewed
Resistance stars Jesse Eisenberg and tells the true story of how mime artist Marcel Marceau helped orphaned Jewish children to…
A fine, even rather noble drama: BBC1's The Salisbury Poisonings reviewed
This week, BBC1 brought us a three-part dramatisation of an ‘unprecedented crisis’ in recent British life. Among other things, it…
The Madness of George III is much easier to like than King Lear
The longest interval in theatre history continues. Last week the National Theatre livestreamed a 2018 version of The Madness of…
