Culture

Culture

The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.

Remarkably moving: The Dig reviewed

Film

Just before the outbreak of the second world war a discovery was made in a riverside field at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk. It was an immense buried boat, dating from the 7th century, and it yielded gilded treasure after gilded treasure, thereby wholly changing our understanding of the Dark Ages. ‘They weren’t dark… by Jupiter!’

Lloyd Evans

How Facebook became a freedom-gobbling corporate monster

Theatre

Southwark Playhouse is beating the latest lockdown with a zingy new musical about social media. The performers, Francesca Forristal and Jordan Paul Clarke, remember the far-off days when Facebook was just a harmless supplement to ordinary social interactions. How did it turn into a freedom-gobbling corporate monster? We meet the Zuckerbergs, Mark and Priscilla, as

So good I watched it twice: Netflix’s The White Tiger reviewed

Film

The White Tiger is adapted from the Booker-prize winning novel (2008) by Aravind Adiga. It is directed by Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart, 99 Homes) who also wrote the screenplay. It stars Adarsh Gourav, otherwise a songwriter and singer. It’s a rags-to-riches story set in India but it’s not at all a typical rags-to-riches story

Watch Mark Kermode find 1950s political attitudes in 1950s films

Television

The new series of Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema began with an episode on British comedy films. As ever, Kermode was terrific at demonstrating how persistent certain characters and ideas in his chosen genre have proved to be. He traced the theme of ‘the little man’ from George Formby and Norman Wisdom to Paddington Bear,

Damian Thompson

Alfred Brendel the Dadaist

Classical

How many people are celebrating the fact that, last week, one of Europe’s most inspired writers about music, modern art and aesthetics celebrated his 90th birthday? The answer is relatively few, which might seem surprising. He is a world-renowned authority on the grotesque and the absurd — territory through which he darts mischievously in his

Riveting: Dear Comrades! reviewed

Film

Andrei Konchalovsky’s Dear Comrades! is based on a true event and set in 1962 in the Russian city of Novocherkassk where the local factory, the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant, went on strike. This doesn’t sound especially sexy, I know, but it is superbly acted and so rivetingly told my concentration did not waver for an

Lara King

The politics of handbags

Exhibitions

‘Of course, I am obstinate in defending our liberties and our law — that is why I carry a big handbag,’ Margaret Thatcher once told an interviewer. That handbag was part of the Iron Lady’s suit of armour; a fashion accoutrement turned into a political prop. But an accessory that became instantly recognisable on the

Lloyd Evans

Stick it on the BBC: Love Letters at Theatre Royal Haymarket reviewed

Theatre

Love Letters by A.R. Gurney began life as an epistolary novella about two childhood friends, Andy and Melissa, whose on-off romance is traced through an exchange of letters lasting 50 years. In 1988, the script was turned down by the New Yorker magazine: ‘We don’t publish plays.’ Gurney hired an actress, Holland Taylor, and together

James Delingpole

Superb but depraved: BBC1’s The Serpent reviewed

Television

The Serpent is the best BBC drama series in ages — god knows how it slipped through the net — but I still think it most unlikely that I shall stick it through to the final episode. It’s not the style that’s wrong but the subject matter: do we really want to spend eight hours

Alan Rusbridger on the joys of four-hand piano

Classical

One of the few social activities not yet prohibited under lockdown laws is four-handed piano playing. I don’t mean sitting side-by-side at one keyboard. That would risk infection and, if snitched on, the possibility of sharing a prison cell with Piers Corbyn. No, the four hands must be divided equally across two pianos, and the

A round-up of horror podcasts

Radio

Good evening! Come shivering on in through the garden side door, my friends, and distance yourselves in a semi-legal fashion around the flickering flames of my recently installed firepit while I guide you through the best horror listening for the depths of this December dark and drear. The Magnus Archives is an unslagoffably enthusiastic anthology

Rod Liddle

‘You can’t have opinions any more’: Rick Wakeman interviewed

Music

‘Classic rock’ is a rather fusty old oxymoron, but then the term ‘classic’ is applied these days to chocolate bars and that most in-demand of consumer undurable, lavatory paper, so I suppose one shouldn’t complain. Covid-19 will probably be remembered as a ‘classic virus’ one day not too soon, when there are other more baleful