Arts Reviews

The good, bad and ugly in arts and exhbitions

Thursday

Jenny McCartney Jenny McCartney

Glamour or guilt? The perils of marketing the British country house

The most angst-ridden sub-category of the very rich – admittedly a lucky bunch to start with – must surely contain those who have inherited a British country house, along with the exhortation to keep it up. Imagine the anxiety of knowing that one is custodian of a large, crumbling pile of distinguished architecture, stuffed with meaningful antiquities and perpetually besieged by damp, dry rot and taxes. For those of us who are already reliably paralysed by small-scale admin, it would be enough to drive you to drink or worse. In contrast, the landed gentry who survive best in this modern terrain must be energetic, ruthless and ingenious; in all probability

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

The Stockhausen work that is worth braving

Grade: A- One of the best one-liners attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham refers to the stridently avant-garde Karlheinz Stockhausen: ‘I’ve never conducted his music, but I once trod in some.’ It’s almost certainly apocryphal, but the implied verdict is widely shared. Stockhausen played up to the caricature of the self-obsessed ‘squeaky gate’ composer, though his capacity to create painful noises went way beyond squeaks: only he could have written a string quartet in which each player is recorded in a separate helicopter. So I’m sticking my neck out when I suggest that some of Stockhausen’s works are masterpieces that can be enjoyed even – or especially – if you steer

Richard Bratby

Aggressively jaded: Edinburgh’s Marriage of Figaro reviewed 

‘Boo!’ came a voice from the stalls. ‘Boo. Outrage!’ It was hard not to feel a pang of admiration. British opera audiences don’t tend to boo; we’re either too polite or too unengaged. But there we were in Act Three of Kirill Serebrennikov’s production of The Marriage of Figaro – just after the scene where Susanna, the Count and the Countess enjoy a three-in-a-bed romp while singing the trio ‘Soave sia il vento’ – and at least one person felt passionate enough to raise his voice. It was hard not to feel a pang of admiration. British opera audiences don’t tend to boo Obviously, there’s no such trio in The

James Delingpole James Delingpole

Must-watch TV: Apple TV+’s Pachinko reviewed

Pachinko is like an extended version of the Monty Python ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch (‘I used to have to get out of shoebox at midnight, lick road clean, eat a couple of bits of coal gravel’) relocated to mostly 20th-century Japan and Korea. There’s so much misery it makes Angela’s Ashes look like Pollyanna. And there’s so little by way of laughter or a redemptive pay off you might be tempted to end it all like one of the numerous doomed characters do – off camera, fortunately – in the almost relentlessly catastrophe-laden season one. Pachinko comes pretty close, I’d say, to being must-watch television Now we’re back for season two

Laura Gascoigne

The importance of copying

The lunatics were once in charge of the asylum. The first six directors of the National Gallery were all artists: before art history became an academic discipline, artists were the leading authorities on art. Founded more as a teaching resource than a visitor attraction, until the mid-1940s the gallery was reserved for artists two days a week, when other visitors had to pay for entry. This stopped them getting in the way of artists copying from the masters, an essential part of an art education in the days before cheap colour reproduction. There’s something of the altarpiece in this image of an artist’s progenitors flanking a touchstone for his art

Deborah Ross

The Terminator is still the best

The Terminator is James Cameron’s first film, made a star of Arnold Schwarzenegger, is celebrating its 40th anniversary – there’s a 4K restoration out in cinemas – and I’ve never seen it. I’m not wholly ignorant of 1980s action films, it may surprise you to hear. I’ve seen Diehard. I know a single fella in a vest can see off an entire army. But Terminator passed me by and now I’m glad to have rectified that. It’s engrossing, suspenseful, has a personality all of its own and absolutely stands the test of time. That last scene with the crawling, whirring, clanking arm? Best scene ever. Cameron, who would go on

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

In praise of one of cinema’s greatest trolls

The most important thing to know about the filmmaker and writer Marguerite Duras is that she was a total drunk. ‘I became an alcoholic as soon as I started to drink,’ she wrote, proudly. ‘And left everyone else behind.’ It’s not something any of the academics who’d been drafted in to introduce each film in the ICA’s exhaustive Duras season thought to mention, even in passing. Instead they spent their time trying to convince us that her films were political: they were about Palestine, feminism, decolonisation. They aren’t. They’re about being bladdered. They’re about the fact that Duras would wake up by vomiting her first two glasses of booze, before

Graeme Thomson

The Ava Gardner of the ketamine age: Lana Del Rey, at Leeds Festival, reviewed

As the American superstar starts singing another slow, sad, rather beautiful song, my mind begins to drift. I’m thinking that our appreciation of music is so much about the who, the when and perhaps most crucially the where; the significance of place is an under-examined element in our relationship with what we’re hearing at any given moment. I’m also thinking that a massive over-reliance on concert revenue to sustain artists’ livelihoods means that nowadays bigger is almost always seen as better – even when ‘bigger’ comes at the obvious detriment of the music. And I’m thinking that an act’s popularity – and indeed their excellence – isn’t necessarily proportionate to

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Artistically embarrassing but a hit: Shifters, at Duke of York’s Theatre, reviewed

Shifters has transferred to the West End from the Bush Theatre. It opens at a granny’s funeral attended by the grief-stricken Dre, aged 32. Dre was raised by his ‘Nana’ as he calls her – rhyming it with ‘spanner’ – and he weeps when he realises that his mother has failed to show up. A beautiful young woman arrives unexpectedly. This is Dre’s teenage sweetheart and they exchange gossip over a glass of whisky while rummaging through Nana’s belongings. The press night crowd adored these flawless yuppies. An artistic embarrassment but a sure-fire hit The lovebirds met at school where they studied philosophy and outshone all their rivals in the

Saturday

William Cash

William Cash, Marcus Nevitt, Nina Power, Christopher Howse and Olivia Potts

31 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: William Cash reveals the dark side of Hollywood assistants (1:12); Marcus Nevitt reviews Ronald Hutton’s new book on Oliver Cromwell (7:57); Nina Power visits the Museum of Neoliberalism (13:51); Christopher Howse proves his notes on matchboxes (21:35); and, Olivia Potts finds positives in Americans’ maximalist attitudes towards salad (26:15).  Presented and produced by Patrick Gibbons.  

Thursday

Nina Power

How did we ever come to accept the inhumane excesses of capitalism?

What was neoliberalism? In its most recent iteration, we think of the market seeping into every minute corner of human existence. We think of privatisation, off-shoring and the parcelling out of services to the highest bidder. Neoliberalism takes the proud liberal individual – in pursuit of his or her happiness, rather keen on freedom – and shreds them through a mean-spirited calculator to come up with some sort of shrunken market midget, an efficient risk-evaluating robot. Neoliberalism takes the proud individual and shreds him or her through a mean-spirited calculator Yet even though the market is supposed to be the arbiter of everything, repeated state intervention appears to be necessary

James Walton

Why are these dead-eyed K-pop groups represented as some kind of ideal?

On Saturday, Made in Korea: The K-pop Experience began by hailing K-pop as ‘the multi-billion-pound music that’s taken the world by storm’. Unusually, this wasn’t TV hype. Last year, nine of the world’s ten bestselling albums were by Korean acts (the sole westerner being Taylor Swift). Even odder for people over 40, according to such reliable sources as Richard Osman on The Rest is Entertainment podcast and my children, South Korea has replaced America as the cultural centre of the Earth for many British teenagers. Korean youngsters are trained for pop stardom on an industrial scale But this global domination hasn’t come about by chance. Korean youngsters are trained for

Richard Bratby

Britain’s youngest summer opera festival is seriously impressive

Waterperry is one of the UK’s youngest summer opera festivals: it started up in 2018, at the northern limit of the species’ natural habitat. You leave the motorway at Oxford services and double back through the fields to the hamlet of Waterperry. Drive past the ‘Cats Crossing’ sign and the life-sized effigy of Rowan Atkinson (honestly) and you’re there. There’s a big house (slightly run to seed), a farm shop, a garden centre and a nursery containing the national saxifrage collection, which is not something you see every day. The opera festival squeezes in between them. Let’s do the show right here! Well, why not? The Barber was literally staged

Deborah Ross

The best film you won’t go and see this week: Widow Clicquot reviewed

August is known as ‘dump month’. It’s when the most forgettable films are released on the grounds that people don’t go to the cinema much in the summer. But maybe they don’t go because the films are so forgettable? Either way, the best film you probably won’t go and see this week is Widow Clicquot. You may wish to make a note of that. Shall I go on? With this film you probably won’t see? Better had. This space won’t fill itself. Some weeks I wish it would. But we all have our crosses to bear – plus it’s hardly coal-mining. The best film you probably won’t go and see

Michael Hann

Triumphant: Big Thief, at Green Man, reviewed

One of the first things I learned after seeing Big Thief triumph at Green Man is that some long-time fans are worried about them. There’s an extra percussionist; the bassist has been replaced; and the singer is now front and centre. Have they just become a conventional rock band, people mutter. Have they lost the intimacy they once had? I’d never seen Big Thief before, which is something of an error on my part. Not least because I can’t answer those questions: I have nothing to compare Saturday night’s performance with. I can only say that without caring about what they were in the past, they are extraordinary in the

Jonathan Meades

A familiar OE-led balls-up: Rory Stewart’s The Long History of Ignorance reviewed

In my next life I intend to have my brain removed in order to become a telly executive. You know: ‘where ignorance is bliss/ ’Tis folly to be wise’ (Thomas Gray, OE). Such ignorance is a state which, happily enough, Rory Stewart, OE and a fully tooled-up Mob from rent-a-thinker (what one of those executives, without a hint of irony or faint praise, once called ‘television intellectuals’) are just now kicking around in the hope that they may rehabilitate it and release it from its sty of obloquy. Rory is a very keen type – what used to be called an all-rounder – and, despite his protestations otherwise, he is

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

The cast mistake screaming for comedy: Cockfosters, at Turbine Theatre, reviewed

The Turbine Theatre is a newish venue beneath the railway arches of Grosvenor Bridge in Battersea. The comfy auditorium is furnished with 94 cinema seats and the only snag is the scent of mildew clinging to the plasterwork. Overhead, the rumbling commuter trains create the perfect soundscape for Cockfosters, a zany rom-com set on the Tube. Two travellers meet by accident on a Piccadilly line service departing from Heathrow Terminal 3. James is a nerdy public-school reject who spots a fellow traveller, Victoria, struggling to shift three monster suitcases onto the train. Obeying Tube etiquette, he makes no attempt to help her and they sit in adjoining seats without acknowledging

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Too bombastic to be country music: Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion reviewed

Grade: B Country music has become the acceptable route through which American pop stars resuscitate their floundering careers: sales are down, kid – shove a fiddle in the next one. And a pedal steel. And git some of those country dudes to collaborate. Especially Dolly. But also Hank Williams Jnr, if you can. Makes them look hip, makes you look real down home. So it is with the agreeably slobbering rapper Post Malone, born in NYC, raised in LA but here sounding like he jes swung in from some roadhouse barstool outta Shreveport, with bourbon and country blood trickling down over his stupid tattoos. His career has hit a hiatus

Saturday

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Richard Madeley, Cindy Yu, Lara Prendergast, Pen Vogler and James Delingpole

30 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Richard Madeley reads his diary for the week (1:01); Cindy Yu explores the growing trend for all things nostalgic in China (6:00); Lara Prendergast declares that bankers are hot again (11:26); Pen Vogler reviews Sally Coulthard’s book The Apple (17:18); and, James Delingpole argues that Joe Rogan is ‘as edgy as Banksy’ (23:24).  Presented by Patrick Gibbons.  

Thursday

Laura Gascoigne

Porcelain-painting during the French revolution

People don’t accumulate stuff any more. When the late Victorian houses on our street change hands their interiors are stripped of all decorative features and the walls painted white, unrelieved by pictures: if their Victorian owners returned as ghosts, they would go snow-blind. The Victorians’ passion for accumulating stuff was close to an addiction, and no one accumulated it like the Rothschilds. But the Rothschilds didn’t stop at objects; they also collected exotic animals, especially birds. All the Rothschild chateaux and mansions boasted aviaries – and Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild’s Waddesdon Manor was no exception. Six years after its completion in 1883, a rococo aviary manufactured in France was installed