Arts and Culture

CHARLIE CONNELLY on pair of new releases, their contrasting receptions and authors, and what they tell us about Britain today. Author Kerry Hudson has published the “astonishing” tale of childhood poverty, Lowborn. Photo: Nick Tucker – Credit: Archant It’s not often I enjoy seeing an author getting an absolute savaging from reviewers but the way […]

PETER TRUDGILL tells the story of Norn, now vanished from the British Isles, though some of its sounds still linger. Philologists generally divide the Scandinavian languages into two historical branches: eastern and western. Swedish and Danish fall into the Eastern Scandinavian division, while Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic form the Western Scandinavian languages, the Faroe Islands […]

For 500 years, Verrocchio has been overshadowed by his more famous pupil, Leonardo Da Vinci. Claudia Pritchard reports on a new exhibition attempting to draw him into the limelight. The distinctions between painter, sculptor, goldsmith and architect were more blurred in 15th century Italy than today, and it was not uncommon for artists and craftsmen […]

TIM WALKER reviews Orpheus Descending at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. I’m on a theatrical bender without end, and, take it from me, I’m on the hard stuff. I’ve downed three Arthur Millers in quick succession and now it’s time for a shot of Tennessee Williams, who is, quite frankly, right up there with […]

Its author might now be deeply unfashionable, but that shouldn’t put us off The Jungle Book, says CHARLIE CONNELLY. The British poet, Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), is known for his verse collections and animal stories, including the Jungle Books and Just So Stories. Picture: National Portrait Gallery, London. – Credit: Bettmann Archive Who among us doesn’t […]

These days we hear the word like, meaning ‘similar to’, quite a lot. In fact, in the speech of many younger people today it seems to occur, like, all the time. But it is a word with an extraordinarily interesting and complex history, and one which is not completely understood. One fascinating aspect of its […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY finds a true sense of patriotism in a collection of poems that tries to wrest that word back from nationalists. Chinese Spring by Christopher New will be published later this month to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. – Credit: Archant One of the more frustrating aspects of the […]

Two deaths overshadowed an ominous 12 months for Britain and the planet. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. David Bowie during his concert in West Berlin in front of the Reichstag building on the 6th of June in 1987. Photo: DPA/PA Images – Credit: DPA/PA Images According to a Mayan prophecy, doomsday was set for December 2012. In […]

Fifty years ago saw the most controversial Eurovision Song Contest yet held. SOPHIE DEBOICK looks back to an event that began with intrigue and ended in farce. Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco. Photo: Dominique BERRETTY/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images – Credit: Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Eurovision is rarely without a row, but this year’s contest – […]

As the Premier League draws to a close, PETER TRUDGILL explores the meanings behind some of its biggest names. As is well known to most English football fans – and to the entire population of Norway over the age of three – the manager of Manchester United is called Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Like very many […]

While European sounds veered towards the melancholy, and often morose, America was tuning in to something far more effervescent. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. The Victorian age was being left behind, but in 1904 the western world was still torn between civilized modernity and brutal primitivism. It was the era of the New Imperialism, and April’s Entente […]

His musical talent and passion might have been overshadowed by other elements of his reign, but Henry VIII deserves his reputation as a king with an ear for a tune, says SOPHIA DEBOICK Henry VIII is known as a musician monarch, but it is a characterisation based on a song he almost certainly didn’t write. […]

Almost by chance, CHARLIE CONNELLY finds himself engrossed in a timely novel set in a Paris beset by rising floods. Most of the books featured in these pages I buy myself. I hear about them, I buy them, I write about them. I’m also sent review copies of forthcoming books and if the right book […]

Still life may lack the drama and passion of other forms of art. But, as CLAUDIA PRITCHARD discovers at an exhibition of one of its great proponents, it is no less intense Battle scenes, expansive nudes, eye-popping abstracts and ravishing views compete in the art gallery to catch the eye, with their scale of ambition, […]

While the charts were filled with much that was bland, 1948’s standout hits displayed technical innovation and an inspired slice of weirdness. NEW YORK – CIRCA 1949: Singer Patti Page poses for a portrait circa 1949 in New York City, New York (Photo by James Kriegsmann/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) – Credit: Archant The war may […]

The story of how a little corner of Wales retains a very English flavour. If you look at a map of Wales, you will see that the majority of the places in the country bear unmistakably Welsh-language names: Aberystwyth, Caernarfon, Ffestiniog, Llanelli, Machynlleth, Pwllheli, Ystradgynlais. Certainly no one would ever suppose that Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant was somewhere […]

Of two major new exhibitions dedicated to Vincent Van Gogh, one focuses on the artists he admired at the beginning of his career, while the other looks at an artist who looked up to him. With its neat fields and slender trees that pierce a heavy sky, a single picture plays a pivotal role in […]

As a new initiative to encourage the reading of fast fiction is launched, CHARLIE CONNELLY sings the praises of short-form literature. ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’ is the famous response attributed to Ernest Hemingway when challenged to write an entire story in six words. This was the ultimate short story and the quickest of […]

Come rain or shine, CHARLIE CONNELLY has swum in the Channel every day since last summer. He explains how it can boost your energy and self-esteem. If you look closely at the photograph above, you’ll see that between the frost-covered shingle and those majestic massing clouds there’s a tiny speck of a person. That person […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on a reissued classic that celebrates wanderlust and everything that Brexit seeks to deprive us of. Of all the rage-inducing aspects of the last three years, two comments above all continue to have me grinding my teeth and occasionally waking up shouting in the middle of the night. Both of them came from […]

A vintage year for the industry saw the most No.1s ever, as attempts to greet the new millennium with gravitas fell flat. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports. The Millennium Dome summed up the pricked pomposity of the year 2000. Tony Blair called it ‘a triumph of confidence over cynicism, boldness over blandness, excellence over mediocrity’. In the […]

PETER TRUDGILL explains the processes by which phrases can contract to just a shadow of their former selves. It is often the fate of words and phrases, over the millennia, to get shorter and shorter. The Latin phrase hoc die, ‘this day’, famously became so shortened in French – as hui, ‘today’ – that French […]

JASON SOLOMONS on a new film about the remarkable life of Bert Trautmann, the former German paratrooper who became a British hero. Trautmann, Bernhard. Picture: Schirner/ullstein bild via Getty Images – Credit: ullstein bild via Getty Images If you’ve heard of Bert Trautmann, it’s perhaps more as the answer to a football trivia question than […]

Dorothea Tanning was a rare female protagonist of surrealism and bridged many art disciplines and movements. A new exhibition pays due tribute to this pioneer, says CLAUDIA PRITCHARD. One door opens and another door opens in both the life and the art of Dorothea Tanning. A surrealist painter and sculptor, designer and writer, in her […]

JASON SOLOMONS on a new book which captures – and cherishes – the idiosyncrasies and occasional flaws of the capital. London is the best city in the world. As soon as you surrender to this indisputable fact, then you can set sail on the tide of emotion and information that swells through a new book, […]

Britain – as ever – focused on the twin fascinations of sex and scandal. And did so with a glorious abundance of fun and frivolity. SOPHIA DEBOICK reports Actress, dancer and singer Lottie Collins (1866 – 1910) curtseying. She is famous for the song ‘Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay!’ Photo by London Stereoscopic Company/Getty […]

The rising popularity of translated fiction shows we remain a country keen to look and learn beyond our shores, says Charlie Connelly. I bring a glimmer of hope. It is just a glimmer, a small one, and perhaps one in the manner of the email I received from a cross-channel ferry company last week announcing […]

Much remains unclear about the nature of the music produced by the Romans. But, as SOPHIA DEBOICK reports, by piecing together the clues, their creativity can still be heard. After the ravages of the Great Fire of Rome, the reign of Nero, multiple civil wars and the disasters at Pompeii and Herculaneum the previous year, […]

Singers started to unbutton, and America got a taste for adultery. SOPHIA DEBOICK on a saucy year in music (Eingeschr�nkte Rechte f�r bestimmte redaktionelle Kunden in Deutschland. Limited rights for specific editorial clients in Germany.) Bleriot, Louis – Engineer, Aviator, F *01.07.1872-02.08.1936+ Betheny near Reims: Louis Bleriot during a flight, befor his accident – ca. […]

It has its diehard fans, but do we really need this punctuation mark, asks PETER TRUDGILL The English word apostrophe comes from a Greek term meaning ‘turning away’: in Modern Greek apó means ‘from’ and strophí is ‘turn’. As used in English, apostrophe refers to the usage of the punctuation mark ‘ to indicate the […]

The author of Das Boot would have hated the new TV adaptation – but he hated most things. CHARLIE CONNELLY on the troubled mind which could never escape the terror of war beneath the waves. Lizzy Caplan as Carla Monroe in Das Boot, 2018. PHOTO: IMDB – Credit: Archant One morning in the spring of […]

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 […]