Arts feature

Michael Henderson has been to 100 operas by Wagner. He wasn’t always an admirer of the music When sceptics ask how I ‘found’ the music dramas of Richard Wagner there is an obvious, contrary answer: I didn’t; he found me. As a young music-lover I was certainly no Wagnerian in the making. Although I had

Henrietta Bredin talks to Ruth Wilson about her role as Stella in the Donmar’s Streetcar If Ruth Wilson doesn’t very soon become a major force to be reckoned with, as an actress, director, producer, screenwriter (probably all four), I’ll eat my entire, quite extensive collection of hats. She is bursting with talent and possesses a

Was television in Seventies Britain that good? Is today’s better? James Walton investigates On the weekend of 2–3 December 1978, two ambitious drama projects began on television. One was the BBC Shakespeare — which seven years later had finally carried out its promise to make TV versions of the entire canon. The other took rather

Henrietta Bredin talks to Janis Kelly about her role in Rufus Wainwright’s first opera, Prima Donna Anyone less like the clichéd idea of a prima donna than Janis Kelly would be hard to find. She is known and loved as a singer and consummate actress with a conspicuous lack of airs and graces who will

Futurism Tate Modern, until 20 September The centenary of Marinetti’s ‘First Manifesto of Futurism’ is a wonderful excuse, if excuse be needed, for a celebration and perhaps re-assessment of a movement that attacked the past in the name of all that was modern. Today, Futurists would be execrating any movement as old and as passé

Andrew Lambirth talks to Douglas Dunn and Norman Ackroyd about their latest collaboration Illustrated books are one of the glories of a library. Looking over my own shelves I find assorted delights ranging from The Story of My Heart, the unorthodox vision of the naturalist Richard Jefferies fittingly partnered with woodcuts by Ethelbert White, to

Stephen Pettitt on how Sir Roger Norrington and others started the debate about ‘authenticity’ In the late 1970s, the conductor Sir Roger Norrington, at the time in charge of the late and lamented Kent Opera, created the London Classical Players. With this act Norrington, who has just turned 75, joined a small group of musicians

Dan Jones on how the Armada tapestries, destroyed by fire, are being recreated Anthony Oakshett points to a palette and shows me a colour called ‘sea-monster grey’. The tall and genial artist is guiding me around his cool, airy temporary studio in an outhouse at Wrest Park, the Bedfordshire country house. Around us stand six

Henrietta Bredin finds out what it is that draws actors to the gruelling one-man show Judi Dench says she’d never do it, Roy Dotrice didn’t do it for 40 years but started again in 2008, Joanna Lumley says that managing to do it while looking at her own reflection in a mirror made her feel

Lloyd Evans charts the death of political satire and looks to where comedy is heading next Live comedy ought to be extinct. For five years the internet has been waving an eviction order in its face, but despite the YouTube menace, and its threat of death-by-a-thousand-clips, live stand-up is blossoming. You’ll have noticed this if

Michael Bullivant tells Petroc Trelawny how he became Bulawayo’s chief musical impresario For an extraordinary month in 1953, Bulawayo became the epicentre of culture in the southern hemisphere. In celebration of the centenary of the colonialist and diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes, the Royal Opera House and Sadlers Wells Ballet took up residence. Sir John Gielgud

Lloyd Evans wanders round Inner Temple and discovers another world in the tangle of squares Where’s the best place to eat lunch in London? First let’s strike restaurants off the list. At a restaurant your plate of recently throttled livestock will have been executed by a pimply sadist, cooked by a cursing psychopath and delivered

Katie Mitchell explains to Henrietta Bredin how she is creating a parallel film world with Purcell’s opera It is 350 years since Henry Purcell was born and his music is, gloriously, being played and sung all around the country. And there are a lot of different Didos about: Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage at