Auguste Rodin’s sensual portrayal of tragic lovers caught in an embrace before being killed by a jealous husband is one of the world’s most recognised works of art. The French artist had the idea for The Kiss (Le Baiser) in 1882, and the larger-than-lifesize marble artwork emerged a decade later. By then, Rodin was the … Read more
Kaliane Bradley, 36, lives in east London and works as an editor at Penguin Classics. Her debut novel, The Ministry of Time (Sceptre), was published last year to critical acclaim and a place in the bestseller charts and is out in paperback now. It’s a vivid time travel tale following Lieutenant Graham Gore, a crew … Read more
The decline of drama as a school subject has had a serious knock-on effect on the live entertainment business. While it is harder now for a budding star to imagine a stage career, the more immediate impact is on theatres’ skills and craft departments. The problem is a top priority for Indhu Rubasingham, two weeks … Read more
Can one star save Welsh theatre? On a spring morning in Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre (WMC), 180 people are thronging for the answers. We’re in the Awen bar next to the gorgeous 1,900-capacity Donald Gordon theatre, which last summer staged the hit play Nye, about NHS founder Aneurin Bevan. This experience inspired its lead actor, … Read more
For two weeks in Denmark the subject of the documentary was “bigger than Trump”, says producer Michael Bévort. The broadcast of Grønlands hvide guld (Greenland’s white gold), a 55-minute film about the Danish exploitation over several decades of a cryolite mine in southern Greenland and the vast sums of money it generated, made waves in … Read more
You can see a whole world – submerged, waiting, ready to burst forth – in the face of any adolescent girl. In Sally Mann’s At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women, she captures this special, unstable time of life. In this image, a plaited-haired girl sits in a chair, head in hand like a world-weary grownup. … Read more
The Slow Newscast: Die Die DEI (Tortoise Media)Drama on 4: The Film (Radio 4) | BBC SoundsGood Hang with Amy Poehler (The Ringer)Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan (Lemonada)Working Hard, Hardly Working (Grace Beverley) | Apple podcasts The Slow Newscast is usually worth a listen. Take Die Die DEI, from the week before last. … Read more
The Piano 9pm, Channel 4 Musician Jon Batiste is a sparkling new addition to the competition, telling co-judge Mika that he doesn’t even need to hear a single note to detect a star: “That’s how I picked a lot of my band members: I saw my drummer Joe Saylor on the street and said: ‘Man, … Read more
Max Romeo, the influential Jamaican reggae artist best known for tracks such as Chase the Devil and War Ina Babylon, has died at the age of 80. The singer, known to his family and friends as Maxie Smith, died after heart complications in Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica, on Friday. Romeo rose to fame in the … Read more
Born in Birmingham in 1960, Mandy Theresa O’Loughlin is better known as author Kit de Waal. After a career as a magistrate specialising in adoption and foster care, she studied creative writing at Oxford Brookes University. Her debut novel, My Name Is Leon, was published in 2016, winning the Kerry Group Irish novel of the … Read more