Arts
You’ll be blubbing over a wooden boulder at David Nash’s show at Towner Art Gallery
Call me soppy, but when the credits rolled on ‘Wooden Boulder’, a film made by earth artist David Nash over…
Anna Karenina
Tolstoy’s most fascinating character, Anna Karenina clearly fascinates David McAllister who has recently announced his 20th and final season as…
Sebastiao Salgado – master of monochrome, chronicler of the depths of human barbarity
Occasionally, we encounter an image that seems so ludicrously out of kilter with the modern world that we can only…
Joyce DiDonato seduces you within the first 10 minutes: Royal Opera’s Agrippina reviewed
‘Laws bow down before the desire to rule…’ Centuries before ‘proroguing’ had entered British breakfast-table vocabulary there was Handel’s Agrippina,…
Did Radio 2 really need to give us four days of the Beatles to celebrate Abbey Road?
This Changeling Self, Radio 4’s lead drama this week, clearly ought to have gone out in August. It’s set —…
A solid costume drama but Dame Helen has been miscast: Catherine the Great reviewed
It’s possibly not a great sign of a Britain at ease with itself that the historical character most likely to…
If you ever want to sleep again, step away from Joker
Judy is in cinemas this week and so is Joker and if you have to choose between the two, then…
Flimsy and pretentious sketches: Caryl Churchill’s Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. reviewed
Caryl Churchill is back at the Royal Court with a weird collection of sketches. The first is set on a…
A cast of Antony Gormley? Or a pair of giant conkers? Gormley’s new show reviewed
While Sir Joshua Reynolds, on his plinth, was looking the other way, a little girl last Saturday morning was trying…
Violins of the ACO with Richard Tognetti
Every year is a year of anniversaries, not least 2020 with the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s voyage along the…
The poetry of sewers
‘Welcome,’ says our guide Stuart Bellehewe, with an imperious sweep of his arm, ‘to the cathedral of shit.’ Before us…
Radio 4’s The Art of Innovation is a series that — for once — deserves the label ‘landmark’
Radio 4, how do I love thee? Rather as one loves the flocked wallpaper that came with the house. It…
Gloriously un-PC: Ronan Bennett’s Top Boy reviewed
Sir Lenny Henry, the former comedian, is wont to complain to anyone who’ll listen that there isn’t enough ‘diversity’ on…
More Grace Kelly than Grace Jones: Welsh National Opera’s Carmen reviewed
How do you take your Carmen? Sun-drenched exotic fantasy with a side order of castanets, or cool and gritty, sour…
You may not wish to kiss the ground when you finally leave the cinema, but I did: The Goldfinch reviewed
The Goldfinch is an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Donna Tartt that centres on a great work of…
One for pauper-gawpers: Faith, Hope and Charity at the National reviewed
Tony Hawks’s musical, Midlife Cowboy, has transferred from Edinburgh to the Pleasance, Islington. At press night, the comedy elite showed…
Proggery beyond parody: Iggy Pop’s Free reviewed
Grade: D+ Pleasant memories — of hearing ‘Raw Power’ for the first time and later the amiably shambolic chug of…
See You at the Toxteth
The Toxteth is a hotel on Glebe Point Road in Sydney. Cliff Hardy probably called it a pub. Hardy was…
The untold story of Judy Garland
Judy Garland is now a myth, a paradigm and a warning: don’t let your daughter on the stage! It’s the…
Simon Rattle’s Messiaen is improving with age
Two flutes, a clarinet and a bassoon breathe a chord on the edge of silence. As they fade, the sound…
How refreshing to see a show about prejudice that barely mentions white people
Lynette Linton opens her stewardship of the Bush with a drama about racial and sexual bigotry. Four British women decide…
What’s the point of the Today programme?
What else is there to write about in the week that John Humphrys, that titan of the BBC airwaves, retires…
The rare gifts of Peter Doig
‘My basic intention,’ the late Patrick Caulfield once told me, ‘is to create some attractive place to be, maybe even…
Abba, Twitter vs Instagram, and papal selfies: the modern face of the Catholic Church
As a lifelong Catholic, I’ve often thought that two of the Church’s chief characteristics are a) how weird it is…
An eight-year-old’s dream: Muse at the O2 reviewed
‘Butterflies and Hurricanes’ by Muse was on heavy rotation on MTV at a time, 15 years ago, when my infant…
