Eurofile

If there’s one playwright in this country that I think we’ve ridiculously over-indulged it’s Alan Bennett. What honestly can be said about our much-vaunted national treasure’s best-known work The History Boys, except that it’s an apologia for paedophilia? So many of Bennett’s plays – I think especially of Afternoon Off, with its hideous undertones of […]

MARIKA TAYLOR studied at Cambridge University under Stephen Hawking. She remembers his inspirational teaching style. Like many students of my generation, Stephen Hawking had already had enormous influence on me long before we ever met. When I was hesitating about my A-level choices, it was his book A Brief History of Time that convinced me […]

A first class sentimental journey says TIM WALKER Old black and white films had their own subtle ways of conveying messages that were deemed to be awkward at the time they were made. The sight of a character seated with a blanket over his or her legs tended, for instance, to be a portent of […]

It takes some arrogance to rewrite Shakespeare, says TIM WALKER. The sheer size of the National Theatre’s Olivier stage seems to have thrown everyone involved in this production of Macbeth into a state of utter panic. Set designer Rae Smith tries to make it feel more manageable by throwing down several vast curtains of cheap […]

TIM WALKER says Martin Shaw has his vote in this Gore Vidal stage drama Ronald Reagan used to say that politicians shouldn’t merely represent the people, but they should represent them at their best. I look at Donald Trump – and, on this side of the Atlantic, Boris Johnson – and I’ll admit that I […]

Why the West End show starring Suranne Jones is certainly not one for the faint-hearted. It never ceases to amaze me what little due diligence some people are willing to put in before they commit the best part of a couple of hundred quid – not to mention a couple of hours of their lives […]

In his latest stage review, TIM WALKER watches Girls and Boys at Royal Court Theatre, London. Girls and Boys Royal Court Theatre, London, until March 17 FOUR STARS It’s rather an annoying thing watching a play you’ve decided isn’t any good – and, in my case, have a rather nasty two-star review already composed in […]

In his latest stage review, TIM WALKER watches Mad as Hell at Jermyn Street Theatre, London. Mad as Hell Jermyn Street Theatre, London, until February 24 FOUR STARS More than 40 years on, Peter Finch’s anguished cry in the Oscar-winning film Network – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it […]

TV critic KEVIN O’SULLIVAN on what our viewing habits say about us as a troubled nation Karren Brady, Lord Sugar, and Claude Littner on The Apprentice. Photo: Jim Marks/BBC – Credit: BBC/Jim Marks Amid the moronic inferno of a ludicrously polarised mass debate there is perhaps one thing we can all agree on about Brexit: […]

The savaging that Milo Yiannopoulos’ awful book received at the hands of its editor provided joy for many. But CHARLIE CONNELLY had a very personal, and pressing, reason not to join in the ridicule Just before the turn of the year there was much merriment on social media concerning the manuscript of Milo Yiannopoulos’s memoir […]

A sterile-sounding genre is revived by an injection of illicit creativity. SOPHIA DEBOICK on the musicians who put the soul into rural America’s music At the mid-point of the 1970s rock was in its pomp. The Who set a record for the biggest indoor concert (78,000 at Pontiac, Michigan in December). Led Zeppelin sold out […]

What makes some men act inappropriately? Psychiatry professor PHILIP GRAHAM explores the science behind harassment It is a scandal which started in Hollywood and has spread around the globe, as sexual harassment allegations are made against more individuals, and concerning more institutions. The full repercussions are yet to be fully understood, but this troubling issue […]

In his most celebrated poems, Rupert Brooke gave a classic evocation of England. But, argues CHARLIE CONNELLY, his work has a very European context My copy of Rupert Brooke’s 1914 And Other Poems is a third impression of the first edition that was published in June 1915. The first run had only appeared the previous […]

Facing upheaval in Europe, modern art found a very special refuge in New York. So, says CLAUDIA PRITCHARD, a new blockbuster MoMA exhibition in Paris represents something of a homecoming When the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York was founded in 1929, it had no museum building, and precious little art. But it […]

Britain has never produced another hero like Dan Dare. In a landmark year for the lantern-jawed pilot, CHARLIE CONNELLY pays tribute to a figure who has shaped our art, literature, science, architecture and even musical theatre 2017 is a big year for Dan Dare. Born in 1967, he turns 50 while also marking 50 years […]

Painting Chaucer as a Little Englander, as many have done, does him a disservice. It is time to reclaim the great man from the Brexit tendency, says CHARLIE CONNELLY​ Every year on October 25, the anniversary of Chaucer’s death, I heave my copy of The Riverside Chaucer from the shelves, haul it to the sofa […]

SOPHIA DEBOICK on a year in which the last lingering cobwebs of Victorianism were blown away by a new sound. Before the First World War announced the 20th century as an era in which humanity would pervert technology and ideals of gallantry into lethal forces, its earliest years were marked by legendary feats of human […]

Despite plenty of opportunities being created, when it comes to European sports books, writers are just not putting their chances away, says CHARLIE CONNELLY. If you were to name one book that pricked your interest in Europe, what would it be? Grimms’ Fairy Tales? Pinocchio? the Chalet School books? If I tell you mine, promise […]

Our culture correspondent Viv Groskop charts the many chapters in the career of a man described as the ‘most exciting new theatre writer of our time’. Florian Zeller is one of those people who, once you find out about them, you feel as if you should already have known who they were a very long […]

The world’s most successful show this year – beating the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Justin Bieber – is a Swiss figure skating performance. Could the British warm to it, asks WAYNE SAVAGE? The UK’s mild weather is perhaps to explain for our uneasy relationship with ice. Despite an intense, if short-lived, fascination with Torvill […]

Akvavit has been a Scandinavian favourite for centuries. The spirit’s name is derived from the Latin aqua vitae, or ‘water of life’ (as indeed is the word ‘whisky’, which comes via the Gaelic equivalent of the phrase). Like vodka, it is distilled from either grain or potatoes and is then flavoured with herbs, spices or […]

There is more to Alberto Giacometti than his reputation as a troubled maverick, says JOANNE CRAWFORD. The life and art of Alberto Giacometti have received plenty of attention in 2017. A major exhibition of his work was held at Tate Modern in London, and then came the release of Stanley Tucci’s biopic, Final Portrait, a […]

Plenty of books create beautiful evocations of the cities in which they are set. But far fewer succeed in elevating their locations from a backdrop into a central character. CHARLIE CONNELLY selects a few. On learning of the death of J.P. Donleavy on September 11 at the age of 91 I eschewed the most appropriate […]

By attempting to quash the result before it was even known, Madrid has made the case for Catalan independence all but unanswerable. As I believe I’ve mentioned a few times in columns past, I spent the academic year 1990 to 1991 living in Spain; I was working as an English language assistant in a high […]

There’s something rather familiar about 1981. America had a new president better known for showbiz than politics, the Labour party was being led by a scruffy leftist, a new age of nuclear paranoia was dawning and a devastating London fire became the focus for protest at social and racial inequality. The pop scene that year […]

PETER TRUDGILL traces the clockwork progress of the word ‘orange’ from southern India to northern Europe, and finds the odd detour. The Democratic Unionist Party are having difficulty coming to terms with the official use in Ulster of Irish Gaelic, the indigenous Celtic language of Ireland. They also have a predilection for the colour orange. […]

Ahead of the return to London of arguably his greatest work, Glengarry Glen Ross, Charlie Connelly considers the craft of polymath and playwright David Mamet. Al Pacino on the set of Glengarry Glen Ross. Photo: New Line Cinema/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images – Credit: Corbis via Getty Images In the mid-1960s Carol Stoll would sit […]

BONNIE GREER on the performers who can reinvent themselves for an overseas audience. In ITV’s latest hit period-soap Victoria, the French actor Bruno Wolkowitch plays the role of the wily and lecherous French king Louis Philippe. From about 1997-2006, Wolkowitch was French television’s version of Al Pacino, a brooding, intense, and sexy presence in a […]

Now the hype is over, what can we expect next from the king of hygge? As our culture correspondent Viv Groskop reports, it’s time to like lykke. Unless you have been living under a rock (and perhaps, in view of Brexit, that is not such a bad place to be), you will have noticed the […]

A new report from campaigning group Women in Journalism shines a light on the sexism of Fleet Street, says its authors Eleanor Mills, Katie Hind and Áine Quinn. The media is the mirror that society holds up to itself. It is through newspapers – whether in print or on screen – that the first draft […]

Peter Trudgill on a remarkable discovery which transformed the way we think about languages. About 230 years ago, Sir William Jones made an amazing intellectual breakthrough. Jones had been born in London of a Welsh father and an English mother, and some reports suggest that he grew up bilingual in Welsh and English, though this […]

How the ‘Flying Finn’ dominated distance running during the 1920s through sheer dogged determination more than natural talent. It’s often the case with the world’s best words that there’s no direct English translation, something certainly true of the Finnish sisu. Indeed, for a concept that lies at the very core of Finnish character and identity […]