“Leave to Remain” considers love in a hostile environment
In a new musical, with songs by Kele Okereke, Brexit causes a relationship to change course
James Waddell
Erstwhile early modernist at Oxford and Cambridge. Write about books and arts for The Economist etc. Winner, Benjamin Franklin House Literary Prize
The economic sensibilities of “A Christmas Carol”
In his festive tale, released 175 years ago, Charles Dickens prescribed not Marxist revolution or Victorian beneficence but free trade and commerce
An adaptation of “White Teeth” shows how Britain has changed
Eighteen years after Zadie Smith’s debut novel was published, its multicultural optimism is a distant memory
A new play stages Darwin’s first inklings of scientific revolution
The Natural History Museum in London plays host to “The Wider Earth”, a play about its spiritual father
A new play restages the trials of Artemisia Gentileschi
“It’s True, It’s True, It’s True” is a timely and haunting play fashioned out of 17th-century court transcripts and art history
The hazards of updating classic texts
A scorned production of “Tartuffe”, set in modern Los Angeles, holds important lessons for directors
“Mood Music” lays bare the exploitative side of the music industry
In the shadow of the #MeToo movement, a new play dramatises the dark corners in a world of bright lights
Refugee Writers: Ghosts of the road, spectres at the feast
If the world’s 65.6m forcibly displaced people formed their own country, it would be the 21st-largest — smaller than Thailand, but bigger than France. One of the many things that this imaginary nation lacks, in comparison with others, is a literary canon.
A surreal take on the war in Syria
“Goats”, a new play, portrays a government scheme where slaughtered sons are replaced with domesticated beasts
“Albion” is a state-of-the-nation play for Brexit Britain
WHAT is the essential feature of an English country garden? An old oak tree, a bed of roses or a well-trimmed lawn? The country estate that provides the backdrop for “Albion”, Mike Bartlett’s new play, has them all
A new play unpicks the figure of the messianic tech billionaire
The protagonist of “Against”, apparently in communion with the divine, sets out to solve the world’s violence
The vanity and eerie beauty of early photography
From striking abstracts to proto-selfies, what people would do with cameras was apparent from the very earliest days
A new play explores the genesis of Britain's titanic tabloid
How an Australian outsider turned a flagging broadsheet into a force of nature is the stuff of high drama
Germany’s techno DJs, a thoughtful lot
A new film connects electronica, Heine and the romantic German soul in troubled times
Britain's ceramics revival
Nestled between a bread factory and an industrial launderer is the newly opened branch of Turning Earth, an open-access pottery studio
Why literature is the ultimate big-data challenge
In a few decades, statistical analysis of literature has gone from crackpot theorising to cutting-edge research
A century after the Russian revolution, a showcase of its art
At the Royal Academy, a sinister history lurks beyond the frame
Forty years of grey
The National Theatre celebrates four decades in operation
Handel v The Hacienda: Are nightclubs high culture?
It is just before lunchtime on a crisp Sunday morning in Berlin, and a small congregation is waiting to gain entry to Berghain
The City within a city: Notes on the Square Mile
There is something uniquely disconcerting about the void where a demolished building once stood. You try and pick out the spots in the air where people walked through doors, along corridors, or up and down flights of stairs. It is as unsettling as ancient hills are strangely comforting in their age, particularly when the building is near where you live.
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