The temptation is to see Christopher Marlowe’s brutal history play as a commentary on homophobia. After all, it is about a king who loses his throne thanks to loving a male courtier. The other nobles, disturbed by Edward’s devotion to Piers Gaveston, close rank. From that point on, Gaveston’s days are numbered, as are those … Read more
For at least half her life, the Belize-born British composer Errollyn Wallen, appointed last year to the title of Master of the King’s Music, has steered herself through a web of invisible rules. Classical composers, dead or alive, were male and white. Their Black and female counterparts were derided or ignored, excised from history. Then, … Read more
A couple of years ago I wrote about the nepo baby discourse that had kicked off, arguing that focusing all of our energy on the very rich and famous was a distraction, when we should be talking about class and opportunities among the rest of us ugly losers. I still stand by this position. However, … Read more
I took this shot in 1987, when I was living in Boston, Massachusetts. It was the middle of the Aids crisis, and there was an atmosphere of fear as more people fell victim to the virus. The year before, I had decided to create At Home With Themselves, a series in which I captured the … Read more
This year’s Glastonbury set will feature two first-time headliners in the British pop-rock group the 1975 and the US pop-punk songwriter Olivia Rodrigo. The band, led by Matty Healy, will top the Friday night billing on the Pyramid stage. Rodrigo will perform on Sunday. In 2022, the Drivers License singer performed on the Other stage, … Read more
Ahead of the 21st Bafta games awards this April, the institution is running a public survey asking people to nominate the most influential video game of all time. As the survey points out, this is an open-ended question: early, groundbreaking titles such as Space Invaders and Pong regularly crop up as answers because they helped … Read more
Samuel Butler’s 1903 novel The Way of All Flesh carried with it an implied subtitle. In the book of Kings, from which Butler drew his title, the dying David tells his son Solomon, “take thou courage and shew thyself a man”. Butler’s inference was clear enough: here is a book about what it means to … Read more
Mehdi Yarrahi, a well-known Iranian protest singer who spoke out against the country’s strict dress code for women, has been given 74 lashes as part of an agreement to end a criminal case against him. Yarrahi was initially convicted in January 2024 of acting unlawfully by releasing a protest song in September 2023 entitled Your … Read more
“I’m quite convinced that, no matter what I say, I’m not going to be able to convince you to kill for me,” film-maker Errol Morris says drily. “And, alas, I have to say that I don’t have the desire to kill anybody or to convince you to kill on my behalf. It just isn’t there. … Read more
Van Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum is so popular it has taken steps, it was recently reported, to reduce visitor numbers. I can only assume Anselm Kiefer’s alienating exhibition is part of this plan to scare off the punters. A curator lent weight to the suspicion by telling me “the sort of people who come here” … Read more