Last weekend Daniel Barenboim brought the Staatskapelle Berlin to perform at the BBC Proms for a cycle of Elgar’s symphonies. As Elgar only finished two of the things, it is among the easier symphonic cycles to pull off. But the Staatskapelle played beautifully over two nights at the Albert Hall, with moments of outstanding musicianship.
It was surreal to sit in the Donmar Warehouse and watch Committee, a musical based on the investigation into the charity Kids Company. The first oddity was that anyone ever thought to write a musical based on the transcript of a Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. The second, that this production wouldn’t have existed
There is nowhere better to plot than the Palace of Westminster. There are alcoves to conspire in, little-used corridors and discreet watering holes. And no group enjoys plotting more than Tory MPs. Add a general election result that made the Tory leader a lame duck and you have the perfect ingredients for political mischief. But
Washington D.C. Political scandals sometimes throw up deliciously eccentric minor characters. Trump-Russia — a scandal or merely a crisis, according to taste — now has one: Rob Goldstone. He is described as a British former tabloid journalist, a music promoter, former Miss Universe pageant judge, and friend of the Trumps. Facebook videos reveal a short,
Frankfurt ‘This is not about punishing Great Britain,’ declared Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s interim foreign secretary, on his recent visit to London. I fell about laughing, because this is precisely what’s going on. It is as obvious to us Germans as it is to the Brits: the EU cannot tolerate the thought of a successful United
Have you been cheering for the excellent Johanna Konta at Wimbledon? Go, Jo! Or should that be Go, Yo? Johanna (pronounced Yo-harner) was born to Hungarian parents in Sydney and came to Britain when she was 14; her parents moved to Eastbourne while she went to train in Barcelona. She became a British citizen in
Dear Uncle James Thank you for your thought-provoking comments on my last letter (8 July). I accept that personality played a part in my deciding who to vote for. However it also seems to me that your own criticism of the Labour party is centred around personality — i.e. based on Jeremy Corbyn’s personal view
Food programmes are having a strange effect on me: I watch them and feel nauseated. Masterchef, The Great British Bake Off, Great British Menu, half a dozen others. In the past I’ve watched and loved them all, sharing the exhilarating triumphs and gut-wrenching despair of the trembling hopefuls. A thousand times I’ve held my breath
Liu Xiaobo, China’s only Nobel Peace Prize winner, has died, eight years into his 11-year prison term. He was the greatest champion of democracy in a country where there are many others also detained by the Communist Party, which insists those convicted are not dissidents but criminals. Tried in 2009 for subversion, Liu had just been moved under
Japan is the only developed country where people openly espouse two distinct and incompatible religions at the same time — Buddhism and Shinto. The Japanese go to Shinto shrines for weddings and children’s celebrations. They go to Buddhist temples for funerals. Shinto shrines are sometimes found within the precincts of Buddhist temples, and vice versa,
A thread runs through several of the stories that have defined this turbulent summer: reporters have been shocked by the levels of hostility they have encountered. ‘They hate us,’ one seasoned producer told me returning from a Grenfell Tower protest. ‘I haven’t felt anything like it in 20 years.’ When the battalions of the media
On the anniversary of Britain voting to leave the European Union, the Principal of Hertford College, Oxford, found some words to sum it up. ‘An entire society crucified by the delusional ambitions of Brexiteers chasing moonshine,’ wrote Will Hutton. ‘An anniversary to mourn.’ One might agree or disagree with his position on the European Union,
Could there be a better metaphor for the corruption that now pervades all top-level sport than the use of motors in professional cycling? It’s so perfectly shameless. If you’re going to cheat by finding illicit ways in which to enhance your performance, as virtually all sportspeople today are forced to do (we’ll come back to
Meeting men used to be so easy. I don’t mean that in a Grindr sort of way. I just mean that when a chap bumped into a chap, you knew what to do. Stick out your paw and shake his hand and everyone could move on. Now, though, the everyday occurrence of being friendly to
Few events have appalled London liberals so publicly as the surprise emergence of the ten MPs of the Democratic Unionist Party as a force in UK politics. The metropolitan horror has been given full expression in the Twitter railing against ‘misogynist dinosaur homophobes’ and the press caricatures of DUP politicians as overfed, bowler-hatted Orangemen slyly
It is a sunny Saturday afternoon in Covent Garden and we are all learning how to kill ourselves. The venue is a nondescript community centre in Stukeley Street. It usually hosts activities for children, so there are crayon drawings and anti-bullying posters on the noticeboard. Today, however, a purple pop-up banner displays the Exit International
Is Islam inherently misogynistic? That old charge arose again after the Manchester bombing in May, with the suggestion that Salman Abedi’s choice of target was driven by a deep-seated prejudice against women — above all against young western women, with their supposedly lax morals and corrupting ways. It was a subtext, too, of the timing
One of the most disappointing things about the general election for me was how few people must have read Nick Cohen’s article ‘Why You Shouldn’t Vote For Jeremy Corbyn’ before entering polling booths on 8 June. Or perhaps they did read it and thought: up yours, mate. The more I think about it, the more
Dear Uncle James, Thank you for your note (‘Letter to a Corbynista’, June 24). Firstly, of course we’re still friends, so there is no need to worry about that. The world would be a boring place if we all agreed on everything, and probably a backward one too if no one was challenged on their
Who will you cheer for if Andy Murray meets Roger Federer at Wimbledon? It’s not a straightforward question, at least not for the English. The loveliness of Rodge and the awkwardness of Andy — however British — makes for a difficult and revealing choice. Different if you happen to be Scottish. I remember a conversation
