Arts
Pure hagiography – the BBC’s Extinction Rebellion: Last Chance To Save The World?
I’m beginning to feel like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers: almost the last person on Earth who…
How to talk to astronauts
Television has the pictures but the most spine-tingling moments in the recordings from the Apollo space missions are the bursts…
The greatest actor in the world couldn’t salvage David Hare’s batty adaptation: Peer Gynt reviewed
The National Theatre’s boss, Rufus Norris, has confessed that he ‘took his eye off the ball’ when it came to…
Completely and utterly and entirely blown away: the Lion King reviewed
The Lion King is Disney’s photorealistic CGI remake of the beloved, hand-drawn 1994 original that, for many children, offered a…
Paul Dyer conducting the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
Only a person who is more or less my age can have a direct recollection of the 1953 coronation of…
‘It could be a disaster’: Jim Broadbent talks to Stuart Jeffries about his latest role
‘I live completely anonymously,’ whispers Jim Broadbent down the phone from Lincolnshire. Nonsense, I counter. You’re one of the most…
Full of wonders: Takis at Tate Modern reviewed
Steel flowers bend in a ‘breeze’ generated by magnetic pendulums. This is the first thing you see as you enter…
A cartoonish look at migration: Europe at the Donmar reviewed
Europe. Big word. Big theme. It was used by David Greig as the title of his 1994 play about frontiers…
Steve Bannon will be thrilled by The Brink
The Brink is Alison Klayman’s documentary portrait of Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist (he shaped the ‘America First’…
Deft, elegant and genuinely chilling: Garsington’s Turn of the Screw reviewed
Think of the children in opera. Not knowing sopranos and mezzos, pigtailed and pinafored or tightly trousered-up to look child-like,…
You leave awe-struck but also a bit frazzled: Holland Festival’s Aus Licht reviewed
In Stockhausen’s Klavierstück XI hands become fists, arms and elbows clubs, shoving, pounding and ker-pow-ing the keyboard to near oblivion.…
An important story but not for the faint-hearted: Deadliest Day podcast reviewed
One of the advantages that podcasts have over the scheduled array of programmes is the space that can be given…
Reminds you how uncomplicatedly thrilling the first moon landing was: BBC2’s 8 Days reviewed
As the title suggests, 8 Days: To the Moon and Back (BBC2, Wednesday) comprehensively disproved the always questionable idea put…
Shakespeare in Love
For centuries plays have been derived from novels, myths and legends but only recently have we become used to plays…
The women who invented collage – long before Picasso and co.
The art-history books will tell you that sometime around 1912, Picasso invented collage, or, actually, perhaps it was Braque. What…
Testosterone and passion: Royal Opera’s Marriage of Figaro reviewed
Another turn around the block for David McVicar’s handsome 1830s Figaro at the Royal Opera — the sixth since the…
Kanye wipes the floor with David Letterman
My plan to cut the BBC out of my life entirely is working well. Apart from the occasional forgivable lapse…
No masterpieces but there are beautiful touches: Félix Vallotton at the RA reviewed
Félix Vallotton (1865–1925) was a member of the Nabis (the Prophets), a problematically loose agglomeration of painters, inspired by Gauguin…
Hideously tasteful elegies to useless country singers: Bruce Springsteen’s Western Stars reviewed
Grade: B– The first Springsteen song I ever heard was ‘Born To Run’, back when I was 14. I clocked…
Jonathan Dimbleby is right: we need to rise up and defend the BBC
There’s been a Dimbleby on air since before I was born but last Friday saw the end of that era…
A good horror film for those who don’t like horror films: Midsommar reviewed
Midsommar is the latest horror film from Ari Aster, who made Hereditary, which starred Toni Collette and was a sensation.…
A crowd-pleasing pantomime: Present Laughter at the Old Vic reviewed
Present Laughter introduces us to a chic, louche and highly successful theatrical globetrotter, Garry Essendine, whose riotous social life is…
Margaret Olley Pomegranates in a basket 1967
It’s a barely forgivable cliche to call them ‘the odd couple’; but Margaret Olley (1923-2011) and Ben Quilty (b. 1973)…
Cindy Sherman – selfie queen
The selfie is, of course, a major, and to me mysterious, phenomenon of our age. The sheer indefatigability of selfie-takers,…
Funny moments swamped by an intolerable romance: Yesterday reviewed
Yesterday is the latest comedy (with sad bits) from Richard Curtis, directed by Danny Boyle, about an unsuccessful singer-songwriter, Jack,…
