In memoriam Ennio Morricone: the man who defined film scoring
Alexander Larman remembers one of the most prolific composers in Hollywood
Can the arts world learn to love the Tories?
As the Government injects 1.57bn into arts and culture, Alexander Larman considers the reactions from those in the industry
In praise of the Great British pub
Let us sip, slurp and quaff this weekend, and do our bit to keep the pub trade going
Age cannot wither them: has the casting of Ian McKellen as Hamlet gone too far?
Does age-blind casting work when adapting Shakespeare?
Brideshead Revisited at 75
In its combination of glacial beauty and lovelorn desperation, Brideshead Revisited speaks to all readers, Alexander Larman writes
Art Attack
Does culture have a future in the post-lockdown world?
Should we listen to writers about their own work?
As Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads is set to air this evening, Alexander Larman ponders the relationship between a living writer and their works
Sebastian Horsley: equal parts Byronic dandy, Dickensian grotesque and Wildean poseur
Alexander Larman remembers his time with the decadent author, Sebastian Horsley, 10 years after his death
JK Rowling and the Wardens of Woke
The younger Harry Potter stars made their disagreement abundantly clear with the woman who made them
Hollywood or Hollywoke?
Can drama successfully rewrite history to satisfy modern sensitivities?
Crisis, what crisis?
The Spring Budget was a shameless manifesto of complacency and managed decline
A judicial defence of religious liberty is long overdue
Christians should not be discriminated against because of their religious beliefs
Politics with the depth of a puddle
A month of politically-minded podcasts has reached its exhausting apogee
The ongoing fiasco of European defence
Starry-eyed talk of continental cooperation obscures the grim reality of competing interests
Plain English by committee
The effect of the Woolf reforms was to replace one set of legal jargon with another
When classicists attack classics
Sanskrit isn’t the only ancient language to be affected by academic imperialism
Women in prisons deserve better
Classifying male criminals as women adds insult to injury
The Conservative betrayal of selective schooling
Grammar schools are great — but there are not enough of them
Joe Biden needs a Reagan moment
It is time not just for strong words but for serious demands
Scratches in the stonework of history
A new history of graffiti and rebellion is less light and bawdy than one may have expected
What are our cathedrals for?
Changes to the management of cathedrals have obscured the very point of their existence
