The good, the bad and the ugly in books, exhibitions, cinema, TV, dance, music, podcasts and theatre.
You know what the world needs most right now? What it needs is five good-looking-ish, talented-ish blokes dressed in a mélange of artfully deconstructed dove-grey suits singing one of the songs out of Les Misérables, like a boy band but one that does numbers from musicals rather than original compositions, oh, and preferably with the
The Royal Court Theatre, the Young Vic Theatre and the London Library (above) are buildings of varied character and rich history. What they have in common is that each has been unpicked and reassembled by the architects Haworth Tompkins, recently announced as winners of the RIBA London Architect of the Year. This firm, founded in
Belle is based on the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate, mixed-race daughter of a sea captain and his African slave mistress, who was brought up as a free gentlewoman by her great uncle, Lord Mansfield, at Kenwood House, Hampstead, in the 18th century. How fascinating, you might think. You just can’t mess
Might you not have found him a little exhausting, though? If, for example, you were his mother, not given to innovative thinking yourself, and had this youth (in 1920 the word teenager was not current), forever coming up with a new interpretation of Genesis or sketching plans for a contraption that must be at least
‘No, no’ I said, when The Spectator’s literary editor rang up, ‘I’m sure you must be able to find someone who really wants to read another postcolonial analysis of the figure of the North African in English literature.’ But the book turned out to be about the other kind of moor, so I said yes,
There ought to be a comic opera about the Bretton Woods conference — Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face, about Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, with its mordant libretto by Philip Hensher, should be the model. Everything about the conference was overdone. It was held in 1944 in the gargantuan Mount Washington Hotel in New Hampshire, which
In a grand history of the British empire — because that is what this book really is — you might expect more hand-wringing from a historian and Labour MP who has previously written a life of Engels. But despite quoting Marx half a dozen times (and Lenin, twice!) there is something about the idea of
Elements of Raffaella Barker’s new novel, her eighth for adults, suggest commercial fiction: a narrative that oscillates between the aftermath of the second world war and the present day, and two failsafe locations, Cornwall and the Norfolk coast. But From a Distance is not commercial fiction. Barker’s narrative is sparingly studded with quotations, but this
You usually know where you are with a book that promises the story ‘would violate the laws of plausibility’ if it appeared in a novel, and that’s in deep trouble. In the case of How to Ruin a Queen, however, this is a boast with a surprising amount of substance to it. You could make
When this extraordinary book was about to come out in French four years ago its author was told by his editor that it was likely to fail miserably. As Mariusz Szczgieł explains, the doubts were reasonable. No one was sure if anybody in the west would be interested in what a Pole had to say
Aimé Tschiffely was what I have seen in other contexts called a ‘doublehard bastard’. In the middle of the 1920s, this Swiss-born schoolteacher at the age of 30 feared that he was getting stuck in a groove and that he wanted ‘variety’. So he set out on a solo horse-ride from Buenos Aires to New
To be honest I’m not certain that Michael Nyman, The Spectator‘s music critic in the late 60s, was one of the performers on this infamous (and in my opinion greatest) recording of Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. But what is certain is that Nyman (alongside Brian Eno and Gavin Bryars) did become an enthusiastic member
You’ve got to feel sorry for the arts world. Decades of self-imposed diversity drives and community outreach schemes and still – still! – they’re told they’re not being inclusive enough. ‘Even from the cheapest seats in the [Royal Opera] house,’ Harriet Harman said yesterday, ‘I couldn’t see in the audience anyone who wasn’t like myself:
It sometimes feels like there is a never-ending flood of books written by politicians delivered to the Spectator offices. Almost every week a new one – or the invitation to a book launch of a new one – comes through the door. As I type, for example, I can see Fraser’s invitation to the launch
Growing up in the 1970s I watched as much TV as humanly possible. When we had important visitors to the house my mum would merely turn down the volume, and by the time we went to bed you could have fried an egg on the screen. Now that I am a middle-aged, middle-class professional the
Kenneth Clark’s view of culture may by now be ‘outmoded’, but I was surprised to read that it was also ‘narrow’. An exhibition at Tate Britain about Clark’s influence, Looking for Civilisation, and the BBC’s threatening to remake the Civilisation TV series, have given rise to some depressing comment. Much mention is made of Clark’s ‘stiff’ presenting style;
On 18 September, the Scots will decide whether they want to become independent. But it is only a coincidence that Scotland’s most celebrated violinist is launching an album that brings together Scottish folk music, the tunes of Robert Burns and Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy. Nonetheless, I want to know where Nicola Benedetti stands on the
Deans are a strange breed. Growing up in the Church of England, I met a wide range, their cultural tastes embracing everything from Chagall to In Bed with Madonna. In 2003, I didn’t know what appealed to the then Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, John Moses, but in April of that year it suddenly became
Earlier this year, I sat down and watched Kenneth Clark’s groundbreaking TV series Civilisation. I vaguely remember when it was first screened in 1969, but was too young to appreciate it properly. This time around it made splendid Sunday afternoon viewing: Clark’s distinctive blend of authority and humour, his ability to convey information and enthusiasm
It’s rare for the public to be given access to the Royal Archives. They are housed in the forbidding Round Tower at Windsor Castle, and direct contact with them is normally reserved for erudite academics adept at buttering up the Keeper. With about two million documents relating to 700 years of the British monarchy, it
The work of John Banville — Booker-winning novelist and impeccably high-minded literary critic — might seem an unlikely source for a primetime crime series. But since 2006, under the telling pseudonym of Benjamin Black, he’s also published a series of Celtic-noir novels set in 1950s Dublin about a pathologist-sleuth known, even to his intimates, only
Lionel is a king of the New York art scene. An internationally renowned connoisseur, he travels the world creating and destroying fortunes. He anoints a masterpiece, here. He defenestrates a forgery, there. He visits the Californian city of Bakersfield (code in America for Nowheresville) to determine the authenticity of a Jackson Pollock bought for three
Forget the pedantic classifications of genres, styles and schools. When it comes to dance performances, it all boils down to two kinds: those that make one think and those that entertain. Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker is a veteran of the first category. Since 1983, the year she founded her company Rosas, she has used the
Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites is an audacious work, much more so than many others that advertise their audacity. It deals with Love and Death, the central topics of opera, but the love is that of God; and death, rather than being a romantic consummation or a stirring tragedy, is something to be terrified of. The
Grace of Monaco, the Grace Kelly biopic starring Nicole Kidman, is an absolute joy, and I highly recommend it. Unless you live under a rock, which I think I might envy (dark, quiet, peaceful, but maybe dank?), you’ll know it was savaged at Cannes, but don’t let that put you off, as this isn’t just
When I was first learning about classical music, 50 years ago, the scene was more streamlined than it is now. Beethoven was king, with Brahms and Mozart next in line, and Haydn slowly establishing himself. Mahler was the new kid on the block; Bruckner was largely unknown and mistrusted. If one wanted the full symphony
When the rains continued the rivers rebelled, the swans moved inland and even the bank was sandbagged and we saw images of villages cut off and deserted schools and people being carried out of old folks homes and the cathedrals that somehow began to look like galleons; and as each day drenched we began to
Beyond the measured stretch of lawns and hedges are cultivated rows where snug plastic tunnels creep. Indoors, the fantastic spores fluff up on jelly: fungus rages under glass and germination bristles. In a sealed hot-room, in tanks lined with foil predators quietly chew and scrat; aphids suck their fill of sap. A forest of corn
Nadine Dorries’s novel, Four Streets, may have been unilaterally panned by the critics, with the Telegraph’s Christopher Howse labelling it the ‘the worst novel I’ve read in 10 years’, but Nadine’s first official journey into fiction has been a runaway success. It spent the last 43 days in the top 100 Kindle books on Amazon,
