Shakespeare
Tristram Hunt’s Diary: Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘revenge reshuffle’ has distracted attention from several Tory disasters
Whatever you do, don’t allow your six-year-old to be caught short at Crewkerne station. With the rain pouring and the…
Charles Moore’s Notes: Corbyn’s shambolic reshuffle should not distract us from the fact that he is gaining control of Labour
No amount of reports in the press that Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet-making is farcical and his party is divided should…
Why 'safe' is Dot Wordsworth's word of the year
‘Makes me feel sick,’ said my husband, referring not to the third mince pie of the morning (in Advent, supposedly…
I’m a Celebrity is like The Simpsons: good if you’re thick; even better if you’re not
The best bit in I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! (ITV) will be when the prisoners finally revolt…
Kenneth Branagh’s The Winter’s Tale is better than any I can recall
Kenneth Branagh opens his West End tenancy with Shakespeare’s inexplicably popular The Winter’s Tale. We start in Sicily where Leontes…
How did this plotless goon-show wind up at the Royal Court?
One of the challenges of art is to know the difference between innovation and error. I wonder sometimes if the…
Agincourt was neither necessary, nor great. We’re mad to celebrate it
Can anyone explain this sudden enthusiasm for Agincourt, that unexpected victory over the French, now being celebrated, or rather commemorated,…
Shakespeare at his freest and most exuberant: The Wars of the Roses reviewed
The RSC’s The Wars of the Roses solves a peculiar literary problem. Shakespeare’s earliest history plays are entitled Henry VI…
Why on earth did Jeanette Winterson agree to retell Shakespeare's Winter’s Tale?
It is fair to say that Jeanette Winterson is not Shakespeare, though I cannot imagine why any authors would accept…
Horridly magnificent - but real problems occur when anyone opens their mouth: Macbeth reviewed
Who goes to big-screen Shakespeare? Not theatre-goers much, and with reason. Apart from the odd corker by Kurosawa, arguably Olivier…
Rain, shine and the human imagination — from Adam and Eve to David Hockney
‘Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr Worthing,’ pleads Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest. ‘Whenever people…
Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet is far too nice
You can’t play the part of Hamlet, only parts of Hamlet. And the bits Benedict Cumberbatch offers us are of…
Shakespeare's Wars of the Roses is being staged without a single black actor. So what?
Trevor Nunn is staging Shakespeare’s Wars of the Roses without a single black actor. So what, says Robert Gore-Langton
Our Country’s Good prizes the concerns of the actors over the audience
Australia, 1788. A transport ship arrives in Port Jackson (later Sydney harbour) carrying hundreds of convicts and a detachment of…
The drama of St Crispian’s Day: Shakespeare got it right
Charles VI of France died on 21 October 1422. He had been intermittently mad for most of his long reign,…
Machado de Assis wasn’t the Dickens of Brazil— but he is one of the greats
The surname is pronounced ‘M’shahdo j’Asseece’. There are also two Christian names — Joaquim Maria — which are usually dispensed…
Turn this play into a film and it’ll win Oscars – Hollywood can’t resist a posh Brit battling disability
God, what a title. The Gathered Leaves. It sounds like a tremulous weepie about grief and endurance with a closing…
Don’t listen to Amadeus - this Salieri opera is better than Mozart
Magical transformations are a commonplace of opera. We see our heroes turned into animals, trees, statues; witness wild beasts turned…
The Proms is taxpayers’ money well spent: it’s a national asset like fish and chips and the royal baby
Make no mistake: the Proms, whose 2015 season was launched last night, would not, could not, exist without the BBC,…
When is a rape not a rape? Fiona Shaw's Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne reviewed
When is a rape not a rape? It’s an unsettling question — far more so than anything offered up by…
A handy liberal guide on how to save mankind, courtesy of Soho Theatre
Refugee crisis in the Mediterranean! Fear not. Anders Lustgarten and his trusty rescue ship are here to save mankind. Lampedusa…
Crossed swords and pistols at dawn: the duel in literature
Earlier this century I was a guest at a fine dinner, held in a citadel of aristocratic Catholicism, for youngish…
There's a reason why the past four centuries have ignored Shakespeare's King John
King John arrives at the Globe bent double under the weight of garlands from the London critics. Their jaunt up…
Portrait of the week
Home The annual rate of inflation turned negative in April, for the first time since 1960, with deflation of 0.1…
Merchant of Venice at the Globe reviewed: a tip-top production - and a high quality script too
If Julian, Dick, George and Anne had become terrorists they’d have called themselves The Angry Brigade. It’s such a Wendy…
