Arts & Books
The best classical and opera in the UK to stream this April
The Waste Land revisited, plus Isata Kanneh-Mason performs in Manchester
The mind of God? The problem with deifying Stephen Hawking
A new biography argues the iconic physicist was shamelessly self-promoting and his reputation overrated
How Adam Curtis gets into your head
The filmmaker talks about tyranny, the limitations of progressive politics, and myth of England
What fiction reveals about the Algerian War
Joseph Andras’s Tomorrow They Won't Dare to Murder Us stunned France when it was released—and also remains strikingly relevant to the national debates on colonialism today
The mystery of Britain's most famous funeral poet
Mary Elizabeth Frye wasn't much of a poet—but she put to paper one of the most famous verses on grief still celebrated today. Or did she?
Palmyra and the myth of civilisation
Dividing the world into the civilised and the barbarians is no way to understand Syria’s tragedy
Writing isolation—why Elizabeth Barrett Browning is the poet for our time
The Victorian poet was a literary star in her own day but has fallen out of fashion
The best art exhibitions in the UK this March 2021
David Hockney returns to the Royal Academy, and Bhangra Lexicon at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Is antisemitism a progressive blindspot?
In discussions of identity politics, one group always seems left out argues a new book
The best live and streamed theatre this March 2021
A duo of Alan Bennett at Bath's Theatre Royal, plus National Theatre at Home
The dark side of the sea shanty
Jaunty nautical tunes have been keeping us entertained in lockdown—but songs like the “Wellerman” belong to a cruel age of whaling
Literary lessons from George Saunders (and Chekhov)
A chatty yet eagle-eyed analysis of the Russian masters will set writers on their path