The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
As I descended, then descended again, then again, to get to my seat in the subterranean, uncomfortable Linbury Studio at the Royal Opera House, I thought gloomily of the number of miserable evenings I have spent there, and reflected that Philip Glass’s In the Penal Colony was probably all too apt a name for what
Highgrove: Alan Meets Prince Charles (BBC2, Thursday) brought us two men who are not quite national treasures, though who would certainly like to be. It’s interesting that ‘Alan’ apparently needs no surname, though ‘Charles’ requires the identifying title. But in spite of the implied matiness this was a deeply old-fashioned BBC royal slathering operation, in
Philip Hensher salutes ‘Freedom’, Jonathan Franzen’s latest great American novel Family is the engine that drives the novel. Relationships which are both fixed and constantly negotiated are what the novel, as a form, is about. We don’t choose our siblings, our parents, our children, but from day to day we choose, with the full volition
The only thing I can remember about a Tesco advertisement on the television the other night is the line: ‘No rest for the wicked.’ It was meant ironically, of course. The only thing I can remember about a Tesco advertisement on the television the other night is the line: ‘No rest for the wicked.’ It
You don’t have to accept the definition of how to do things, and you don’t have to follow other people’s choices and paths, OK? It is about your choices and your path. It is a measure of people’s continuing admiration for Chairman Mao that last year the White House communications director, Anita Dunn, unashamedly described
The cover of On Snooker shows the Queen Mother sizing up a shot, making a passable bridge but rather failing to get behind the cue. The book is by Mordecai Richler, the great Canadian novelist and essayist, author of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Barney’s Version, who died in 2001. On Snooker takes in
The best book so far about Bob Dylan, the only one worthy of his oeuvre, is his own astonishing Chronicles, Volume One (2004), but while we wait for the next fix, Bob Dylan in America will keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay. Sean Wilentz is a history professor at Princeton, and author of books about
Thoughtful Gardening, twice as long as the first two, beautifully produced in Germany, is a summation of the Lane Fox gardening doctrine, this time mixing more or less practical advice on particular plants — Later Clematis, Sociable Deutzias, Desirable Dahlias, the Etna Broom — with more discursive essays, recalling great gardeners, visiting gardens from Texas
There’s the pretty-much-mandatory South American setting, the gloomy reflections on the nature of reality and unreality, along with a clutch of wildly unreliable narrators. There’s the pretty-much-mandatory South American setting, the gloomy reflections on the nature of reality and unreality, along with a clutch of wildly unreliable narrators. It even has the added cachet of
Benjamin Franklin had this ambition for his body: that after his death it should be reissued ‘in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by the author’. Benjamin Franklin had this ambition for his body: that after his death it should be reissued ‘in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended
My dread was that someone would ask me my opinion of Lermontov or Superstring Theory or the Categorical Imperatives of Kant. I would be exposed as a dull-witted fake. Having left the year before he came up, I could have reassured him there was little danger. Everyone, as he puts it, was in the same
Nigella Lawson is not sexy. She is the sort of woman who women think men think is sexy. No doubt some do: men who watch Top Gear and like all their pleasures to be equally obvious. But more men than you’d credit take one look at Nigella and hit an immediate problem: in spite of
Bob Woodward is the best (and perhaps nastiest) blackmailer in Washington. Sure, you don’t have to co-operate with him but you know what will happen if you don’t. Those who talk to Woodward are always treated kindly by the great stenographer; those who decline his advances invariably become the villains. Each time this happens it
Country music ain’t always about cowboys and outlaws; there’s the distaff side of strong and righteous ladies too. Notably, in this instance, Loretta Lynn and her warning that You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)…
A.A. Gill talks to his friend Terry O’Neill, whose iconic photographs captured an entirely new kind of celebrity I remember the first time Terry O’Neill took my photograph: he wore blue; I wore grey and the Great War helmet of the third regiment of Pomeranian Grenadiers. We were at the Imperial War Museum, and the
William Pye has observed, somewhat wryly, that he’s better known among architects and designers than he is by the art-loving public. William Pye has observed, somewhat wryly, that he’s better known among architects and designers than he is by the art-loving public. There is a simple reason for this: in recent years he has had
No one who has seen The World at War will ever forget it. Thirty-six years on from its original broadcast, it still stands atop a glittering mound of British documentary television. But the great is about to be made better with a new restoration of the series, available on DVD and Blu-ray. The promotional material
The Kid is based on a true story and the book by Kevin Lewis, who had an horrific childhood taking in abuse, violence, poverty, starvation and abandonment by the social services. These books are called ‘misery memoirs’ and sell by the bucketload so I’ve even had a go myself. Now, I know what you’re thinking.
Ira Levin’s name isn’t nearly as well known as his titles. Ira Levin’s name isn’t nearly as well known as his titles. Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives, both originally novels, are his most celebrated works. He also wrote quite a few Broadway hits. In his 1970s play Deathtrap he tries to imagine how an
It was being whispered last week at the first of the two Berlin Philharmonic appearances at the Proms that attendance across the board this year has been 94 per cent. If this is true, and is maintained to the end, it is a staggering achievement. Every year for the past 15 or so, the press
My friend Mickie O’Brien, late of 47 and 44 RM Cdo, died the other day. My friend Mickie O’Brien, late of 47 and 44 RM Cdo, died the other day. I’m not sure how old he was — late 80s, I would imagine — but, whatever, it was good going for a man who should
Paul Johnson reviews Roy Hattersley’s life of David Lloyd George No politician’s life is so difficult to write as Lloyd George’s. All who have tried have failed, and wise heavyweight historians have steered clear. I applaud Roy Hattersley’s courage in tackling this rebarbative subject and congratulate him on his success in making sense of Lloyd
There are turbulent marriages. And then there are turbulent marriages in which the husband ends up getting beheaded on a stage. This book describes the latter. One doesn’t normally need to encourage publishers to hyperbole, but in the case of Katie Whitaker’s subtitle, there might have been a case for giving it a bit more
Within the past month I have been to an 80th and a 90th birthday lunch, both of them highly festive occasions. And now here is an entertaining, erudite and thought-provoking meditation on the matter of age by Jane Miller (aged 78). The so-called twilight years are no longer quite that, for some of us. This
Among the most famous of all living poets, Nobel Laureate, highly educated, revered for his lectures and ideas as well as for his poetry, Seamus Heaney has a daunting reputation. He remains, however, enjoyed by a broad spectrum of readers, accessible, song-like, direct, concerned with everyday details and human relationships. Essentially, Heaney’s poetry strikes to
I never thought I’d write these words. I never thought I’d write these words. This book is unclassifiable. It belongs to a whole new genre. The field of literature has been extended! And I saw it happen. Martin Gayford, who writes for The Spectator and whom I’ve never met, kept a diary during the seven
If one asks Albanians who is their greatest living writer, the immediate answer is Ismail Kadare, winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize in 2005. But the tone of any discussion that follows is all too often grudging or even hostile. The books themselves are hugely popular, their author far less so. The reason
How Music Works opens with a blizzard of reassurances. First, John Powell establishes his ordinary-bloke credentials by means of a slightly tortured analogy between many people’s attitude to music (‘pleasure without understanding’) and the time he went to the chip shop after the pub and realised he couldn’t tell the Chinese owner exactly what gravy
By now, the crucial details of James Ellroy’s life, particularly the unsolved murder of his mother when he was ten years old, may be known better than his books. He emphasised the connection himself when The Black Dahlia, based on a more famous unsolved murder, became a bestseller, constructing a ‘demon dog’ persona to promote