Arts
Taking to the skies
In the first retrospective of his work for nearly 40 years, Peter Lanyon (1918–64) is given the kind of recognition long his due. In the first retrospective of his work… Read more
French foray
One surefire sign of maturity is the acceptance that you have friends who are more talented than you are. I learnt that lesson early, which, considering my manifold shortcomings, was… Read more
Back to basics
One of the few professional stand-up comics I’ve met who wasn’t bitter, twisted, malign, graceless, grumpy, chippy, egomaniacal and slightly to the left of Stalin is Mark Billingham. One of… Read more
Bourgeois frippery
Regime change at Hampstead Theatre. The era of special measures is over and Ed Hall, son of Sir Peter, has taken charge. Hall’s debut show is daring in its complete… Read more
Mrs Gaskell’s bicentenary: Knutsford’s Amazons
On the southern edge of Manchester, a few miles from the airport, there is a commuter town where the Victorian novel remains very much alive. This year Knutsford celebrates the… Read more
Opera Perfect performance Michael Tanner
Promised End Linbury Studio, in rep until 16 November Radamisto English National Opera, in rep until 4 November ‘There is perhaps no play which keeps the attention so strongly fixed;… Read more
Arts debate: ‘Brutal and vulgar’
From the start, the combatively worded motion — ‘Time for the arts to stand on its own two feet and stop sponging off the tax-payer’ — came under attack in… Read more
Enough is enough
Really? This was necessary? Why? What’s the point? OK, I suppose revisiting Wall Street all these years later is timely, given the banking crisis and resultant global meltdown. Really? This… Read more
A place to dream
As regular readers of this column will know, I am not an admirer of large exhibitions. The exhaustive is exhausting, and I refuse to believe that the general visitor can… Read more
Short and sweet
Who’s my favourite stage actress? Since you ask, Olivia Williams in Shakespeare and Nancy Carroll in anything. Who’s my favourite stage actress? Since you ask, Olivia Williams in Shakespeare and… Read more
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