The latest culture as recommended by our staff

New Sondheim: enjoy it while stocks last

Gerald Kaufman is enthralled by the first Sondheim premiere in 14 years. A minor work Road Show may be, but it is still worth much more than anyone else’s musicals

The law applies to Damian Green, too

Rod Liddle is reluctant to join the journalistic herd in its unqualified outrage at the Tory MP’s arrest. But it is certainly time to put the police under the microscope

After Baby P: the crisis in child foster care

Mary Wakefield talks to a courageous woman who blew the whistle on the deep systemic failures in the foster care service — and whose only reward was to be hounded and vilified

The global force behind Mumbai’s agony is in our midst

Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say that LET — the Army of the Righteous — is a worldwide Islamist organisation which is well-established in Britain. The Mumbai atrocities are further proof that the march of Islamic extremism is the central fact of our time

‘They treat me more like a devil than a god’

Lloyd Evans finds that Bernard-Henri Lévy is not the ageing French dandy of caricature but a serious intellectual with views on everything from Barack Obama to the Muslim veil

Highs and lows on the laughometer

Just What I Always Wanted: Unwrapping the World’s Most Curious Presents, by Robin Laurance

High life

Love story

Britain cannot afford a failed Pakistan

Elliot Wilson says that the near-collapse of the Islamic state should focus minds in this country, which is inextricably linked to Pakistan. Its implosion would stoke extremism here

Another Voice

I am woken by the song of the kookaburra in this ancient, haunting landscape

The real lesson is: the public don’t like Jonathan Ross or Russell Brand

Rod Liddle says that the row over their radio ‘prank’ has exposed the fact that these two smug, overpaid performers aren’t really that popular. There are no fans to defend them