A devil to relish
The stories that tell us that women are damned if they play the game of sexual availability and just as doomed if they don’t
Killer jokes
The Unfriend explores how closely good and evil can live in cosy accommodation
Family troubles
Frecknall’s Streetcar is a commendable, if not stellar outing
Norse mode
How John Gabriel Borkman is a hard Ibsen play to like
A bumpy flight
Sheridan’s The Rivals plot is taken to different heights
Doctor in a spin
West End zingers on stage now
Flatpack classic
Summer theatre where anything, including a return to rehearsal-room Brechtian, goes
Steel works
Beth Steel’s House of Shades is a confident new nod to the tradition of multi-generation family sagas
Rooster booster
Pretty much the whole of Jerusalem is in some way “problematic”, which is why people relish it
Atticus updated
A new Mockingbird is masterful
“Problematic” art
This kind of adolescent tripe passes these days for thought
Who’s ready for the Equality Levy?
Birmingham’s bankruptcy is a portrait of Britain’s future
A great conductor leaves the stage
No conductor from China or Japan ever commanded world orchestras before Seiji Ozawa, and none has since matched his impact
Why Britain needs Popular Conservatism
The Conservative Party has not fulfilled the promise of Brexit or overcome the legacy of Blair
Therapy is making children ill
What would really help children’s mental health is talk about resilience
Kilkenny’s golden age
A fascinating exploration of Irish history could have been better and more comprehensively illustrated
Why the OBR is wrong about Brexit
The OBR’s Brexit analysis is based on flawed comparisons and unreasonable predictions
The establishment prefers distractions to solutions
Politicians discuss irrelevances rather than confronting the obvious
Pen pusher
My fascination with fountain pens
How Britain fell in love with cars
From Wind in the Willows to Wodehouse, cars captured the imagination
