Arts and Culture

Matt Withers talks to the Poet Laureate of Brexit Britain about Europe, lockdown and cultural appropriation in music This time last year Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods, the Poet Laureate of Brexit Britain, was writing the first songs for the band’s sixth studio album. The themes would have been familiar for those who know the […]

Colour was always at the core of Wassily Kandinsky’s art. Claudia Pritchard reports on a stunning exhibition which traces his creative journey as he was shifted around Europe by the events of the early 20th century The career path from lawyer to artist is not often taken. Tchaikovsky managed to duck out of jurisprudence and […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY profiles the sculptor and painter, starting on the evening that would change his outlook and output. The epiphany came one cold night in a fleapit newsreel theatre. Alberto Giacometti spent the Second World War in Geneva and had just returned to Paris in the winter of 1945 when he ducked into a cinema […]

The Tennessean city is rightly synonymous with Elvis, but its musical heritage goes far further. If Elvis had not succumbed to the effects of being the most famous person in the world in the summer of 1977, he would be celebrating his 86th birthday this week. He died in the city that was responsible for setting […]

I’m concerned for the future of Brixton Speaks, my only foray, ever, into public visual arts. I did work as a cartoonist for a few years in the mid-1980s, contributing to publications as august as the New Statesman and City Limits, but my quip about the metier once I began writing in earnest, was that […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY reports on the quest for the remains of a writer likened to the Bard, and the posthumous activities of other great authors. Imagine if William Shakespeare’s remains were no longer in his grave inside Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. Imagine if they’d been lost, possibly in an act of desecration during a traumatic […]

PETER TRUDGILL on the famous names inspired by water courses. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was one of the greatest composers who ever lived, and his sublime music is much loved and still very frequently played today, 270 years after his death. His sons Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christian, Wilhelm Friedemann and Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach […]

TIM WALKER looks back at a memorable meeting with the great mime artist. Of all the people in all the world, mine artists must seem like the least promising subjects for an interview. Marcel Marceau was, however, a joy to talk to. And just to behold. It was the summer of 1990 and the scene […]

Were the Angry Brigade a mere comedic English counterpoint to the doomed romantics of Germany’s Baader Meinhof gang or a far more sinister, if thankfully incompetent, force? Today anger is an emotion associated with right wing populism, of foaming keyboard warriors and the puce-faced men that are – for better or worse – often dubbed ‘gammons’. But […]

A petition launched by touring musicians has amassed almost 230,000 signatures as they attempt to secure a free “cultural work permit” that would allow them free travel through the 27 member states to perform. The group of musicians and tour crew who have mostly been left unable to work due to the coronavirus pandemic say they […]

Emma Luck on the singer who shook up Italy. When the long-awaited call came for a meeting with Elvis’ manager Colonel Parker and the King himself in Memphis, Little Tony leapt at the chance. Known as ‘the Italian Elvis’, the performer had always acknowledged the influence of his American hero. It was not hard to […]

You may have to watch them via streaming, rather than in your local cinema, but the first half of 2021 offers some intriguing new films. Richard Luck selects 10 to get you through to summer. Despite the best efforts of cinemas everywhere and my local movie house – Campus West, Welwyn Garden City – in particular, […]

Richard Holledge on a (sadly suspended) exhibition featuring work by Edvard Munch and Tracey Emin, two artists united by the raw, honest nature of their work. It was during a visit to the remote home of the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch that Tracey Emin, overwhelmed with anguish after a miscarriage walked to the end of a small […]

Few years produced as many great films as 1946, the first year after the end of the Second World War, says BONNIE GREER. Might 2021 produce a similar post-pandemic glut of classics? 1946 is a year when most of us humans were not even alive. And of those who were, the majority experienced it as children. So our idea […]

An analysis of European populism explores why it has established deepest roots in two former Iron Curtain states. Authoritarian populists almost doubled their share of electoral votes across Europe between 2001 and 2018 – from 11.8% to 22.3%, according to Swedish think-tank the Timbro institute. There was then a decline after, but it is too […]

As the classic cult film turns 40, Roger Domeneghetti considers the legacy of Flash Gordon and how the character has been a constant influence on sci fi, from Star Wars to Marvel. Say the name “Flash Gordon” and most people will think of the camp, garish cult film with an iconic rock soundtrack by Queen, released 40 years ago […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY reports on the life of Rudolf Nureyev, a figure drawn into Cold War politics and known for his appalling behaviour as well as his supreme gifts. 1961 brought an extra chill to the Cold War. In January outgoing US president Dwight D. Eisenhower had severed links with Cuba and in March Britain convicted the […]

PETER TRUDGILL on how long it took for the accent to appear after English arrived in Australia. In 1788, during the reign of King George III, the English language made a very long journey indeed, penetrating deep into the southern hemisphere. This was on the occasion of the foundation of the British Australian penal colony of […]

What will 2021 bring us? Anniversaries, for a start. JONATHAN SALE flags up the notable events coming up to their centuries, bicentenaries, half-centuries and other round-figure dates which we can mark over the year. January begins with a crucial motoring anniversary, the centenary on the 15th of the day when automatic windscreen wipers reached the UK. […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on the highlights of a highly unusual literary year… and some horrors lying ahead in 2021. It feels a little bit weird looking back at 2020. Not least because it never really felt like a proper year, more as if we got stuck in a really long week in mid-March and never made […]

It all started with ABBA, but Stockholm’s association with pure pop music has long outlasted the band, says SOPHIA DEBOICK. Stockholm is the centre of the Swedish New Year’s Eve. Ever since 1895, the Skansen open-air museum – a collection of historical houses on Djurgården island – has hosted the national celebrations. The tradition of […]

Tim Walker reviews A Christmas Carol, streaming from the Charles Dickens Museum on December 31 I missed catching up with old friends over Christmas, not least Scrooge and Dick Whittington. I’d written the latter gentleman’s name in my diary half-heartedly as I knew there was a fair chance the reunion wasn’t going to happen. Sure enough, when […]

There is more to Bethelem than just carols, as SOPHIA DEBOICK explains. “For 2,000 years people have sung songs for my hometown,” says Leila Sansour in a trailer for her film Open Bethlehem (2014), a personal odyssey through Bethlehem’s past, present and future. Indeed, no other place has been a byword, so frequently invoked in […]

PETER TRUDGILL on some seldom used festive terms. When I was at school, some children thought it was very funny, around Christmastime. to ask the trick question: “How many letters are there in the alphabet?” The correct answer, they said, was not twenty-six but “twenty-five, because the angel said Noël!”. Noël barely qualifies as an English word. For […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on an eerie German story and its remarkable creator. If anyone does Christmas well it’s the Germans. Glühwein, Stollen, the Christmas market; they even convinced the world bringing a conifer indoors once a year and covering it in stuff was a pretty neat idea. When it comes to the December festivities it’s fair […]

MICK O’HARE attempts to disentangle the century-old mystery of who was the first to set foot on the top of the world.  When Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole on January 17, 1912 he found a tent. Inside was a letter from his Norwegian rival Roald Amundsen wishing Scott well and letting him know that he’d […]

Remembering Conny Plank, the music producer who helped define an essentially European sound. There are music producers who become famous in their own right. Joe Meek, Rick Rubin, Jerry Wexler, Stephen Street, Quincy Jones: most of us could probably reel off a list of mixing desk maestros who have helped change or define the sound […]

Videoconferencing has come of age during the pandemic. Could it catalyse activism as well as business, asks NIMO OMER?