First World War
‘I glimpse her ahead of me’ – a solo female traveller follows her hero across Turkey
Gertrude Bell travelled extensively through Turkey before and after the first world war and the author plays dogged detective in her wake
Was Vera Brittain really this insufferable? Buxton Festival’s The Land of Might-Have-Been reviewed
‘Ring out your bells for me, ivory keys! Weave out your spell for me, orchestra please!’ It’s lush stuff, the…
The 100-year-old opiate had lost none of its potency
Our neighbour Michael is a keen and knowledgable attender of vides-greniers, the equivalent of our car-boot sales. His focus is…
Don’t bring me sunshine: a week in the Surrey hills
I’m staying for a week in an 1850s house in the Surrey hills that looks-wise might have been built for…
Quietly devastating: Benediction reviewed
Terence Davies’s Benediction is a biopic of the first world war poet Siegfried Sassoon told with great feeling and tenderness.…
The joy of the Great War memoir
Harley Granville-Barker, actor, director, playwright, manager and critic, was a pasha of the Edwardian London stage. As a director, his…
A hidden side of the Somme
Noticing via this Low Life column that I had trench fever, the Western Front Association treated me to a year’s…
Trump should take lessons in lying from Joe Biden
Gstaad It snowed on the last two days of August up here, and why not? We’ve traded freedom of speech…
Jam and Opium on the Somme
Phone calls aside, the only human contact I had on my ten-day Somme battlefield tour was with the lady who…
The beauty of military cemeteries
They are starting to cut the corn. But apart from combine harvesters and tractors, the roads up here on the…
My Great War obsession
Bernafay Wood B&B, Somme, France I came up on the TGV yesterday from the Midi to northern France and it…
Not even a genius could make Much Ado About Nothing funny
The RSC’s 2014 version of Much Ado is breathtaking to look at. Sets, lighting and costumes are exquisitely done, even…
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…
War and plague have menaced theatres before, but rarely on this scale
War and plague have menaced theatres before, but rarely on this scale, says Lloyd Evans
Good hats – shame about the film: Sunset reviewed
Sunset is French-Hungarian writer-director Laszlo Nemes’s follow-up to his astonishing Oscar-winning debut, Son of Saul. This time round the film…
How to fight Bolshevism
From 10 May 1919: The heart of the country is always for moderation. Nothing could show this more plainly than…
Can Deborah Ross finish her Tolkien review before it fades from memory?
Tolkien is a biopic covering the early life of J.R.R. Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult) and it is not especially memorable. I’m…
The winner of the 2018 What’s That Thing? Award for bad public art is…
Not a bad year for the award. Honourable mentions must go to the landfill abstractions of Oxford’s new Westgate Centre,…
Has the Royal Ballet found its hero?
The Royal Ballet is a company in search of a prince. It has no lack of dancing princesses. You could…
No, Narcos, those who’ve had the odd puff and cheeky line aren’t to blame for the drug wars
Narcos is back on Netflix, set in Mexico this time, with a cool, world-weary, manly voiceover swearily lecturing us at…
Britten’s War Requiem almost sounded like a masterpiece – but it’s isn’t, is it?
‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?’ We’ve heard a lot, lately, of the knell that tolls through the…
Standing in front of my great-uncle’s grave, we thought: I’m so sorry it took us so long
The story is part of family lore. How, during the Battle of Mons, on 23 August 1914, two long columns…
Is Emmanuel Macron having a meltdown?
Emmanuel Macron was elated when France won the World Cup in July. The photograph of him leaping out of his…
When the first world war ended, many soldiers were left with ‘a terrible empty feeling’
‘It was so unreal,’ said one of the first world war veterans about the long-awaited Armistice. It was the most…
My first world war obsession
My reactionary first world war reading jag continues. The literature is vast, but so is my capacity and fascination. I…
