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Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 17 February 2019
Full marks for shoehorning-in the names of city’s two major football teams into the title of Manchester - A City United In Music. But this spiffy double-CD compendium roams...
Markie Robson-Scott
Saturday, 16 February 2019
A Tana French crime novel is never just a thriller. Probably more acclaimed in the USA than the UK (she gets rave reviews in the New Yorker and the New York Times) French always...
Jasper Rees
Saturday, 16 February 2019
There is nothing quite like the Iffland-Ring in this country. The property of the Austrian state, for two centuries it has been awarded to the most important German-speaking actor...
Matt Wolf
Saturday, 16 February 2019
The Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin lived such a fearless life that it's a shame this celluloid biopic isn't correspondingly brave. Sincere to a fault and bolstered by...
Bernard Hughes
Saturday, 16 February 2019
The Venezuelan pianist and composer Gabriela Montero is an outspoken advocate for political change in her country, using her musical standing as a platform from which to highlight...
Mark Kidel
Saturday, 16 February 2019
Abdellatif Kechiche, the Tunisian-French director, is perhaps best known for the lengthy and explicit sex scenes in La vie d’Adèle (Blue is the Warmest Colour). His latest film...
Stephen Walsh
Saturday, 16 February 2019
I last saw this Magic Flute, directed by Dominic Cooke, when it was new, some 14 years ago, and I remember it mainly, I’m...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 16 February 2019
Mahler: Symphony No 6 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings)This lavish...
Katie Colombus
Saturday, 16 February 2019
Avril Lavigne was the original Punk Pop Queen. Fearless, feisty and perfectly fitting for the early noughties as the...
Rachel Halliburton
Friday, 15 February 2019
Two men called "Massimo" face the audience, one very tall, one very, well, minimo. The tall Massimo (Tom Espiner, pictured...
Nick Hasted
Friday, 15 February 2019
The Arthurian legend’s tight fit as a Brexit allegory perhaps proves how timeless it is as, buried and bound in the earth by...
Marina Vaizey
Friday, 15 February 2019
The power of seeing was the bedrock of John Ruskin’s philosophy. In the bicentenary of his birth, a revelatory exhibition at...
Graham Fuller
Friday, 15 February 2019
Tides tells of fortysomething angst and camaraderie, though “tells” might be an exaggeration. In a concerted attempt to make...
Marianka Swain
Thursday, 14 February 2019
This year’s unofficial Arthur Miller season – following The Price and ahead of All My Sons at the Old Vic and Death of a...
Sebastian Scotney
Thursday, 14 February 2019
“My first recital in about a gazillion years in London!” wrote Sarah Chang a week ago for her 140,000 Twitter followers. “I...
Matt Wolf
Thursday, 14 February 2019
Women spend a lot of time gazing at themselves in the mirror in the Belgian auteur director Ivo van Hove's latest stage-to-...
Guy Oddy
Thursday, 14 February 2019
Chaka Khan’s last album, 2007’s Funk This was billed as the Queen of Funk’s comeback after her 80s and 90s purple patch. But...
Thomas H Green
Wednesday, 13 February 2019
The striking cover for the Brighton Festival 2019 programme shouts out loud who this year’s Guest Director is. Silhouetted...
Gavin Dixon
Wednesday, 13 February 2019
The Monteverdi Vespers are usually a grand affair, but Harry Christophers showed they can work just as well on a smaller...
disc of the day
CD: Avril Lavigne - Head Above Water
One strong song, but elsewhere the sound doesn't seem to have evolved
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tv
Catastrophe, Channel 4, series 4 finale review - sitcom saves the best till last
Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney go out on a grief-stricken, hope-filled cliffhanger
Shetland, Series 5, BBC One review - uneven start to new season
Dismembered bodies, drugs and sex-trafficking... in Shetland?
Endeavour, Series 6, ITV review - reassuringly accomplished return of the brainy copper
Dexterous detection and psychological insights in satisfying season opener
film
Q&A Special: Actor Bruno Ganz on playing Hitler
The Swiss actor, who has died aged 77, was the first to play the Führer in a lead role in German
A Private War review - Rosamund Pike burns with passion in well-meaning biopic
A risk-loving journalist is remembered via a safe-seeming film
Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno review - cold carnal overdose from Kechiche
Eroticism does best when less is more
new music
Reissue CDs Weekly: Manchester - A City United In Music
Thought-provoking compendium dedicated to the northern musical powerhouse
CD: Avril Lavigne - Head Above Water
One strong song, but elsewhere the sound doesn't seem to have evolved
classical
Montero, Scottish Ensemble, Kings Place review - new music with a political edge
Imaginative programming but the message sometimes overwhelmed the music
Classical CDs Weekly: Mahler, Saint-Saëns, Danish National Vocal Ensemble
Romantic orchestral music and Danish songs
Sarah Chang, Ashley Wass, Cadogan Hall review – a virtuoso's disturbing 'inner game'
A short yet uneven concert
opera
The Magic Flute, Welsh National Opera review - charming to hear, charmless to look at
Mozart's pantomime about Nature and Reason stuck in a box
Brighton Festival 2019 launches with Guest Director Rokia Traoré
The south-coast's arts extravaganza reveals its 2019 line-up
Akhnaten, English National Opera review - still a mesmerising spectacle
ENO's most successful contemporary opera ever makes a triumphant return
theatre
Berberian Sound Studio, Donmar Warehouse review – improves the original
This dark comedy raises disturbing questions about sound and intimacy
The American Clock, Old Vic review - Arthur Miller's musical history lesson drags
Rachel Chavkin's creative revival can't quite tame this sprawling epic
All About Eve, Noel Coward Theatre review - less a bumpy night than an erratically arresting one
Gillian Anderson and a superb Lily James headline Ivo van Hove's latest celluloid deconstruction
dance
Brighton Festival 2019 launches with Guest Director Rokia Traoré
The south-coast's arts extravaganza reveals its 2019 line-up
Swan Lake, English National Ballet, London Coliseum review - a solid, go-to production
Traditional stagings don't come much more satisfying than Derek Deane's for ENB
Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, Sadler's Wells - vivid, enchanting
Refreshed classic production delights with energy, storytelling and live Tchaikovsky
comedy
Brighton Festival 2019 launches with Guest Director Rokia Traoré
The south-coast's arts extravaganza reveals its 2019 line-up
Adam Riches Is The Guy Who..., Drink, Shop & Do review - super-suave Lothario on the prowl
Immersive show examines male-female engagement in the #MeToo era
Lost Voice Guy, Soho Theatre review - Britain's Got Talent winner finds the funny in disability
Material moves easily between the political and the personal
gaming
Battlefield V review - WWII on an epic scale
The veteran series returns for another ambitious tour of duty
Fallout 76 review - how to wreck a perfectly good legacy with one messy game
When home runs go horribly wrong
Red Dead Redemption 2 review - the cowboy drama makes a triumphant return
An ambitious Wild West odyssey that matches epic scale with benchmark skill
visual arts
Don McCullin, Tate Britain review - beastliness made beautiful
The darkest, most compelling exhibition you are ever likely to see
Pierre Bonnard: The Colour of Memory review, Tate Modern - plenty but empty
A major retrospective of the French post-impressionist is huge, but unilluminating
Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, Victoria & Albert Museum - sumptuous
Daring, flair and elegance over 80 years
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