The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
Even if you think you don’t know William Nicholson, it’s a fair bet that you’ve come across his work. If you’ve read those excellent children’s books, The Velveteen Rabbit or Clever Bill, you’ll have taken in his drawings – never wholly sentimental, even the rabbit – into your mental world. And if you’ve seen his
It was such an enticing programme, too. The Philharmonia had booked Evgeny Kissin, the last great piano prodigy of the Soviet era and one of the superstars of the late 1980s and early 1990s. And then there was the music: three Russian showpieces, including Rimsky-Korsakov’s enchanting and almost unplayed (in the UK, anyway) single-movement Piano
There were times watching Radiohead’s first UK show for seven years when Ricky Gervais came to mind. As Thom Yorke dad-danced around the circular stage in the middle of the arena, his bandmates all hunched over their equipment – which made it resemble a server room of a call centre – I felt as though
Most choreographers today have lost interest in using music as anything more than a background wash of colour and mood. More’s the pity. For an earlier generation the idea that the dance grew through the music – into and out of it – was of the essence: or, as Balanchine famously said: ‘See the music,
End is the title chosen by David Eldridge for his new relationship drama. Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves star as Alfie and Julie, a pair of wildly successful creative types who live in a mansion near Highgate. Both are 59. Alfie is a retired DJ who made a fortune touring the world at the height
Anybody growing weary of the debate surrounding the BBC’s unexamined assumptions and biases about modern politics might have expected to find some relief in a scholarly documentary about the sack of Rome in AD 410. Sad to say, though, the first episode of Civilisations: Rise and Fall offered very little of it. Of course, it’s
Left-Handed Girl is a Taiwanese drama about a single mother who moves back to Taipei with her two daughters to run a noodle stand in the night market. It’s one of those films where the stakes don’t appear that high – will the mother make the rent this month?; will the littlest daughter settle at
When Gurdain Ryatt, Ojas Adhiya, Milind Kulkarni and Murad Ali Khan take to the stage at Milton Court this Sunday they will be united by a common language: the tradition of Hindustani Indian classical music, rooted in the north of India. Ryatt and Adhiya’s job will be to keep beats circulating on their pitched, drum-like
Everyone loves a private view, and I am no exception. I don’t know how many hours I must have spent trudging around central London’s art galleries in search of warm white wine – my social life doesn’t extend much beyond the confines of that circuit to be honest. Lately, however, I’ve been to some dreadful
Stravinsky’s The Firebird begins in darkness, and it might be the softest, deepest darkness in all music. Basses and cellos rock slowly, pianissimo, in their lowest register; using mutes to give the sound that added touch of velvet. Far beneath them rumbles the bass drum: a halo of blackness, perceptible only at the very edge
The Thing With Feathers is an adaptation of Max Porter’s acclaimed novella about a widower who is left to raise his two sons after his beloved wife’s sudden death and whose grief is embodied in the form of a monstrous, giant black crow. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch, who gives his absolute all, but while the
A male British rapper who is unafraid to show tenderness and vulnerability is not a particularly new phenomenon: Dave, Stormzy, Headie One and Kano have all walked this path in recent times. None, however, has made emotional fragility his USP to quite the same extent as Loyle Carner, who writes about his children, his masculine
Pluribus is another drama set in the dystopian future. But on this occasion the integrity of the entire human race depends not on someone ordinary and likeable who could almost be you, but on a bolshie, misanthropic middle-aged lesbian called Carol. Carol (Rhea Seehorn from Better Call Saul) is so grumpy that when in flashback
The Royal Ballet has scheduled what – on paper at least – looks like one of the most dismally dull and cautious seasons I can recall. The company is hobbled by a £21.7 million government loan (that had tided the place over during Covid), which the Royal Opera House is being forced to ‘service’. One
The Hunger Games is based on a 2008 novel about a despotic regime where brainwashed citizens are entertained with televised duels between teenagers. Not a bad idea. We go behind the scenes and watch Katniss (Mia Carragher) being selected to fight Peeta (Euan Garrett) who secretly adores her. As soon as the plot starts, it
I know where I’m going. I’m on the sleeper train chugging out of Euston and heading to Fort William. A wedding dress hangs on the wall in its transparent cover. I know from my printed itinerary that upon arrival at Fort William, there will be a car, then a ferry from Oban, and finally a
The history of the male ballet dancer is a chequered one. In the early 19th century, he was the star of the show, albeit more as an acrobat and tumbler than fairy-tale prince. The vogue for sylph-like damsels floating in white tulle put paid to that, reducing him to the auxiliary role of porter and
There’s not much point pretending to be an expert on Elgar (or so The Bluffer’s Guide to Music assures us) because everyone already thinks they are. And there’s definitely no point getting hung up on the historical accuracy (or otherwise) of Alan Bennett and Nicholas Hytner’s new film The Choral. It’s set in a West
Britain’s heritage is slowly going up in smoke. Medlock Mill was Manchester’s oldest standing textile mill until it burnt down in June. It joins Grade I-listed Woolton Hall – destroyed by a catastrophic fire in August. But it’s not just the buildings that are under threat, but the entire system designed to protect them. Prior
Grade: A Welcome to the Andalusian cadence, the minor fall and the major lift, the descent from Am through G and F to E. Welcome also to Rosalia Vila Tobella, who is not Andalusian, but Catalan, but uses that cadence an awful lot, much as Status Quo prefer to stick to C, F, G. She
Janacek’s The Makropulos Case is a weird and very wonderful opera, but its basic plot isn’t hard to follow. Still, it seems to send directors into a tailspin. One recent production (since revised) had a cast member break character and pull out a flipchart to recap the story so far. Katie Mitchell’s new staging for
Numerous research academics have contributed to this highly cogent show celebrating the craftspeople of Ancient Egypt. My pre-teen companion, though a big fan of Egypt, was still slightly hesitant about whether this would be the most interesting angle. It began with a 4,000-year-old stele, or tombstone, on loan from the Louvre, praising the sculptural and
Yeats famously summarised Ireland in the four words, ‘Great hatred, little room’. But, as Louise Kennedy’s 2022 debut novel Trespasses showed, in 1970s Northern Ireland the hatred had grown even greater and the room even littler. Channel 4’s faithful adaptation began – as it would continue over its four parts this week – with the
Nuremberg is one of those films that falls short on everything it wants to be and everything it could be. It’s a historical drama, set just before the trials, where an American psychiatrist (Rami Malek) is charged with assessing whether Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe), Hitler’s second in command, is fit to stand trial and to
Queen Victoria began to experience dark visions after giving birth to her second child. Concerned that she might have inherited the madness of her grandfather, George III, Prince Albert summoned her doctor. Robert Ferguson was not the obvious man for this scenario – he was an obstetrician – but the doughty queen had heard that
On YouTube – and I urge you to look it up – there is a magnificent piece of footage from German TV, in which big band leader James Last leads his orchestra into a medley of hard rock hits, opening with Hawkwind’s deathless space-rock drone ‘Silver Machine’. And damn it if they don’t nail it.
Othello directed by Tom Morris opens with a stately display of scarlet costumes and gilded doorways arranged against a backdrop of black nothingness. This is Venice at night with no hint of sea or sunshine. Crimson-robed senators gather to discuss Othello’s alleged abduction of Brabantio’s daughter. And here he comes, David Harewood as the Moor,
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein stars Oscar Isaac (Baron Victor Frankenstein) and Jacob Elordi (‘the creature’) and retells the basics of Mary Shelley’s story – man creates monster, man rejects monster, monster goes off on one – with high-camp sumptuousness. Del Toro’s spin is to include a redemptive arc, plus he throws in some invented characters.
In the early 1970s my father moved offices and I was plucked out of my cosy prep school in Surrey to land in the eccentric surroundings of Presentation College. My new school’s modern block was surrounded by decaying Edwardian villas occupied by Irish teaching brothers with impenetrable accents. There was a broken aeroplane on one