Eurofile

Follies, National Theatre, until April 6 When the National Theatre gets a production absolutely right – and let me say immediately that’s what it’s achieved with its revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies – it lifts you in a way that no other venue in the world can quite manage. I have seen a few productions […]

Ahead of tonight’s star-studded ceremony, critic Jason Solomons watches the remarkable Oscar-nominated film looking back on a long-forgotten episode in American history. The group’s leader, Fritz Julius Kuhn, addressed the 20,000 people in attendance. Picture: Getty Images – Credit: Bettmann Archive In February 1939, the month that German Jews were forced to turn over any […]

David Suchet delivers great value as the eccentric Gregory Solomon, alongside Brendan Coyle. Wyndham’s Theatre, until April 27 There is a world-weariness to Arthur Miller’s plays that doesn’t normally start to have much resonance with theatregoers until they reach middle age. It’s one of the few advantages of the peculiarly bleak times in which we […]

A prisoner of the Internet It’s not enough for youngsters these days to live their lives, but they have also to be seen to be living their lives on social media. On Instagram, in particular, appearance often matters a lot more than reality and that is what Sasha gets only too well. She posts some […]

The year when music came with a sense of optimism, Orientalism – and often surrealism – as pharaohs and fruit provided the inspiration. NEW YORK – CIRCA 1925: Blues singer Bessie Smith poses for a portrait circa 1925 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Edward Elcha/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) – Credit: Archant America […]

The Olympic year represented a high point for a self-confident and outward-looking United Kingdom, says Sophia Deboick. Psy performs at the Washington DC Jingle Ball concert at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Virginia in 2012. Picture: ABACA/Press Association Images – Credit: ABACA/Press Association Images Britain felt like a truly hopeful place in 2012. We were […]

PETER TRUDGILL on what lies behind our irregular everyday phrases. The most usual way to make past-tense verb forms in English is to add -ed to the basic form of the verb: want–wanted, love–loved; play–played. So why is the past tense of go not goed but went? Even with verbs which are irregular and do […]

The new play starring Cate Blanchett is as torturous as its name is long, writes TIM WALKER. One of the reasons I love going to the theatre more than ever is that in this age when virtually every aspect of our lives involves staring at a computer screen, 
it is about the only time, outside […]

Loathed by Picasso, praised by Matisse, Pierre Bonnard is an artist who split opinion, writes Claudia Pritchard. A major new exhibition of his work shows how he still does. Nude in the Bath c. 1936-8, by Pierre Bonnard Picture: Tate – Credit: Archant ‘Don’t talk to me about Bonnard,’ protested Picasso around the time of […]

As the Second World War took shape, a big band leader dominated the year. While, from very different quarters, a Disney film and an emerging folk star signalled sounds of the future.SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. The year began with a sense of foreboding. Four months on from the Nazi invasion of Poland, Britain faced the start […]

TIM WALKER’s stage review of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s show Aspects of Love. Two weeks before Aspects of Love first opened in the West End, Roger Moore dramatically withdrew from the cast, saying that he couldn’t cope with the technical demands of the singing. Three decades on, when I got to see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s show […]

Why does the death of a footballer produce such a particular and profound sense of pathos? asks CHARLIE CONNELLY When the aircraft intending to carry 28-year-old Argentinean footballer Emiliano Sala from Nantes to Cardiff disappeared over the English Channel north of Alderney, shock and bewilderment spread throughout the football world. In Nantes, the Breton city […]

TIM WALKER’s stage review of Approaching Empty. The Kiln Theatre in north London has once again made good on its stated mission to encourage artists of all ages and backgrounds with its latest production, Approaching Empty. It is by Ishy Din, a former cab driver of Kashmiri origin, whose family made their home in Middlesbrough. […]

As the Romani brought a gypsy beat from the east, Europe’s greatest musical innovator, Hildegard of Bingen, found a sound that could examine the human condition, as much as praise God. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. Not even a century on from the Norman conquest, 1150 found England in the grip of political crisis. Henry I had […]

As a hit new documentary provides Bros with an unlikely comeback, SOPHIA DEBOICK looks back to the eccentric twins’ first embrace 
of fame Tiffany, wearing a black hat and her hand placed on her cheek. (Photo by Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images) – Credit: Corbis/VCG via Getty Images For Britain, 1988 was a manic year. […]

This week marks the 80th anniversary of the mysterious death of the sublimely-talented footballer Matthias Sindelar. CHARLIE CONNELLY revisits the tragic story of a true Austrian hero National hero: Matthias Sindelar’s image was used to market watches, milk and yogurt. Photo submitted – Credit: Archant Vienna has always had a strong fascination with death. In […]

PETER TRUDGILL on how some unlikely connections between European languages emerged after 2,000 years The Albanian word for king is mbret. You might think that this has got nothing to do with any word in any language that you have ever come across before. But it would be slightly surprising if you were right. Albanian […]

TIM WALKER on the play that Jeremy Corbyn should watch. Si�n Brooke and Alex Hassell in I’m Not Running at the National Theatre by David Hare. Photo by Mark Douet – Credit: Photo by Mark Douet There can be few, if any, audiences traditionally so predisposed to voting Labour than the National Theatre’s. The playwright […]

Tim Walker finds Pinter’s Party Time and Celebration to be an unexpected pleasure. It is hard as a theatre critic not to take almost as much pleasure in the hatreds as the enthusiasms. Over two decades of reviewing, I have seldom, if ever, had a good word to say about Harold Pinter. His work always […]

The castrato singer Farinelli was the undoubted superstar of an era in which musical advances were made not just with compositions, but instruments too. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports In the 1730s Britain was alive with colonial ambition, making power plays for continued dominance in the world abroad, and in possession of thrusting cities at home. The […]

PETER TRUDGILL suggests a time and a place for when and where the English language came into being English is a language which certainly came into existence rather gradually. If we want to know how old it is, the only sensible way of answering that question is to determine when English started breaking away from […]

Tim Walker reviews the National Theatre’s production of Edgar Allan Poe’s grisly tale, The Tell-Tale Heart Peter Cushing knew his craft and numbered among his fans Laurence Olivier, who cast him as Osric in his 1948 film adaptation of Hamlet, and he toured with the great actor and the Old Vic Company in Australia. One […]

It provided the inspiration – and name – for the race, but Greece’s Marathón also has a fascinating linguistic history. PETER TRUDGILL reports. The men’s race at the Athens marathon (marathónios in Greek) was won this year by the Kenyan athlete Misoi Brimin Kipkorir of Kenya, in two hours 10 minutes and 56 seconds; the […]

X Factor’s advent was shortly to end the traditional fight for the festive top slot. But it went out with a bang in 2003, says SOPHIA DEBOICK. Comedian Avid Merrion launches his bid for the Christmas number one spot with Bo Selecta single “Proper Crimbo”. Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images Christmas […]

Back to the farmstead, PETER TRUDGILL reveals the etymology of Paris Hilton’s name but he’s not going to France for the answer. Travellers crossing from England to France via the Channel Tunnel emerge into French daylight in the vicinity of a place called Fréthun, southwest of Calais. In the Pas-de-Calais and the neighbouring le Nord […]

TIM WALKER reviews A Christmas Carol at the Charles Dickens Museum. When A Christmas Carol is done really well – and Dominic Gerrard does it sublimely – members of the audience are compelled to play the part of Scrooge, albeit passively from their seats. This powerful work ought always to grab hold of everyone out […]

Writing fraternal wrongs Sam Shepard’s True West is supposedly a homage to the vanishing American West, but it’s more about a writer losing control of what he’s writing and the triumph of mediocrity over talent.​ There is, of course, only one difference between good writing and bad writing, and that is, in the case of […]

A self-confident Britain holds sway, with the Spice Girls and Oasis to the fore. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. Los del Río’s Macarena was an unlikely smash hit, but it became the biggest single of 1996. The middle-aged Latin pop duo from Seville had been knocking about since the early 1960s, but when this rumba from an […]

In his latest review, TIM WALKER watches Joanna Murray-Smith’s Switzerland at London’s Ambassadors Theatre. When Christmas approaches – and with it the prospect of big family reunions – the thoughts of the nation always seem to turn inexorably towards murder. No festive season is, after all, complete without Miss Marple making an appearance on television, […]

The singer re-emerged in one of his most ebullient incarnations, while another star unveiled his own signature move. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports That the international hit of 1983 was Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon proved that Britain still outstripped the rest of the world for boundary-pushing music. Pleasant pop it was, but its lyrical undercurrent of anguished […]

PETER TRUDGILL on some familiar celebratory Balkan phrases, and how they reflect the region’s complex linguistic history Macedonia is a geographical term which refers to an area of the southern Balkans. For some centuries, the region was part of the Ottoman Empire, ruled by the Turks from Constantinople. It contained a mixed and varied population […]

After Jonathan Franzen’s puffed-up advice for aspiring writers got a mauling online, CHARLIE CONNELLY offers his own, less pretentious tips. Midwinder – Credit: Archant Jonathan Franzen is a Serious Writer, the sort of Serious Writer who requires capital letters whenever you describe him as a Serious Writer. Most of us are serious writers inasmuch as […]