Arts
Slight: Steve McQueen at Tate Modern reviewed
Steve McQueen’s ‘Static’ (2009) impresses through its sheer directness — and it’s very far from static. A succession of helicopter-tracking…
Why foreign-language series will always have the edge over American ones
An office worker stands on the ledge of an open window about to leap. Two colleagues enter, ignoring him completely.…
The appeal of psychopaths
Ever since the end of Gomorrah season four (Sky Atlantic) I have been bereft. I eked it out for as…
The rancid meanderings of a long-spent wankpuffin: Justin Bieber’s Changes reviewed
Grade: D– For my first review of popular music releases in 2020 I thought I’d deposit this large vat of…
In this instance, greed isn’t good: Greed reviewed
Greed is Michael Winterbottom’s satire on the obscenely rich and, in particular, a billionaire, asset-stripping retail tycoon whose resemblance to…
Some of the best Austen adaptations are the most unfaithful
You won’t find much Jane Austen in the myriad adaptations of her novels, says Claire Harman
Odd but gripping: BBC1’s The Pale Horse reviewed
Not much was clear in the opening scenes of The Pale Horse (BBC1, Sunday), which even by current TV standards…
A brilliant, unrevivable undertaking: Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt reviewed
History will record Leopoldstadt as Tom Stoppard’s Schindler’s List. His brilliant tragic-comic play opens in the Jewish quarter of Vienna…
This is how theatre should work post-Brexit: Blood Wedding reviewed
Blood Wedding, by the Spanish dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca, is one of those heavyweight tragedies that risks looking a bit…
Pyramids of piffle: Tate Britain’s British Baroque reviewed
British Baroque: it was never going to fly. Les rosbifs emulating the splendour of le Roi Soleil? Pas possible. Still,…
Are we going to have to start taking Calixto Bieito seriously? ENO’s Carmen reviewed
Calixto Bieito’s Carmen: three words to make an opera critic’s heart leap. Until quite recently, Bieito was the operatic provocateur…
You’ll laugh, cry, cringe and covet the hats and bedspreads: Emma reviewed
‘Too pretty,’ blithers Miss Bates in the Highbury haberdasher as she plucks at a silken tassel. ‘Too pretty’ goes for…
No Pay? No Way!
As a sort of protest, I am not going to the opening of No Pay? No Way! at the Sydney…
The Happy Prince
Many people have had a go at it. Ever since Oscar Wilde published The Happy Prince and Other Tales in…
How Jan van Eyck revolutionised painting
Jan van Eyck changed the art of picture-making more fundamentally than anyone who has ever lived, says Martin Gayford
A terrific two-hander that belongs at the National: RSC's Kunene and the King reviewed
The Gift is three plays in one. It opens in a blindingly white Victorian parlour where a posh lady, Sarah,…
Inspired programming and a proper celebration: Barbican's Beethoven Weekender reviewed
Beethoven wears a feather boa and pink shades. He wrangles an electric guitar. A red lightning flash streaks across that…
Why do writers enjoy walking so much?
Writers like walking. When people ask us why, we say it’s what writers do. ‘Just popping out to buy a…
My step-grandmother would have loved this show: Unbound At Two Temple Place reviewed
My step-grandmother Connie was an inspired needlewoman. For ten years, as a volunteer for the charity Fine Cell Work, she…
SAS: Who Dares Wins is harsh, gruelling and transgressively countercultural
SAS: Who Dares Wins (Channel 4, Sundays) is literally the only programme left on terrestrial TV that I can bear…
Dazzling and nonsensical in equal measure: Madonna at the London Palladium reviewed
You might have thought Madonna was not a singer but a professional footballer judging by the talk before she took…
Fabulous and enthralling: Parasite reviewed
Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite won the Bafta for best foreign film and is up for six Oscars and it is an…
The art of pregnancy
Pregnancy has always been a public spectacle – and as the Foundling Museum’s new exhibition shows, a dangerous one
Mad but terrific: The Lighthouse reviewed
The Lighthouse stars Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson (and a very nasty seagull) in a gothic thriller set off the…
Understated, unashamedly patriotic and heartbreaking: The Windermere Children reviewed
One of the many astonishing things about the BBC2 drama The Windermere Children (Monday) was that the real-life story it…
