Peter Howson is an artist who has spent much of his life “tussling with the beast inside”, said Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times. Born in London in 1958 and brought up in Glasgow, he immediately “stood out” when he first began exhibiting his work in the mid-1980s. For oneContinue Reading
Be warned, said Anita Singh in The Daily Telegraph: the opening of “Henpocalypse!” (BBC Two) may put you off. “Imagine being trapped on a stranger’s hen do, complete with screeching women, straws in the shape of penises, and a sozzled bride-to-be enthusiastically dry-humping a male stripper”, all set to theContinue Reading
This comic tour de force is a “bizarro faux-circus act gone wrong”, said Brian Logan in The Guardian, in which the US performer Bill O’Neill plays both parts of a clowning double act: Kevin Calamity, who promises to slip on 1,000 banana peels, or your money back, and his brother-cumgopher,Continue Reading
The nose of Leonard Bernstein, the legendary American conductor played by Bradley Cooper in an upcoming Netflix biopic, has become the focus of a furore over the issue of representation in Hollywood. “Arguably the least interesting thing” about Bernstein was his nose, wrote historian David M. Perry for CNN. But the “bigContinue Reading
“Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” couldn’t be more different. Yet when it emerged that both films would be released on the same day – 21 July – what initially seemed like a major clash “spawned a portmanteau name”. “This is the summer of Barbenheimer,” wrote Nicholas Barber for BBC Culture, and the twoContinue Reading
When Paula Rego was asked to paint a mural for the dining room of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing in 1990, it “seemed a thoughtless insult”, said Laura Cumming in The Observer. The artist, who died last year aged 87, was renowned for focusing on the kinds of people normallyContinue Reading
Michael Parkinson, veteran British journalist and host of his own long-running TV chat show, has died aged 88. The national treasure affectionately nicknamed “Parky” passed away peacefully at home on Wednesday night following a brief illness, his agent said. He became one of British TV’s most recognisable faces with “Parkinson”,Continue Reading
When it came to the West End in 2007, “The Lord of the Rings” was a “notorious flop”, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. A spectacular mega-musical, incorporating folk, Bollywood influences and pop, it had cost a record-breaking £12.5m to stage, at the 2,000- seat Theatre Royal Drury Lane,Continue Reading
Once upon a time, said Sean O’Grady in The Independent, TV announcers “would introduce a series such as ‘Wolf’ with a sombre warning that it wasn’t suitable ‘for viewers of a nervous disposition’”. That sounds a bit antique now, but I really do think the BBC should find a wayContinue Reading
California welcomed four-legged surfers to a San Francisco beach this weekend as part of the annual World Dog Surfing Championships. Thousands of spectators gathered at Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica, close to San Francisco, to watch the canine contestants compete in the annual event which has taken place since 2016. Continue Reading
