Musical Lessons
Could the jazz-hands pizzaz of musical theatre be just what opera needs?
Welcome to Londongrad
We promise to respect Her Majesty’s life tenancy of Buckingham Palace
Into the mystic
Contemporary debates over the “suitability” of many operas leaves us with only English productions
Ring of fire
The ENO’s production of The Valkyrie may lack flames, but it is convincing nonetheless
Hot Valks live!
While belly-laughs are not frequent, there’s terrific fun to be had in this massive soap-opera-style family melodrama
To the bitter end
Why on earth would we want to see the same tawdry old stories endlessly re-enacted?
Incel inside
The Russians assume we use Opera to project state power, I assure them that the government hate the arts
The G&S divide
A large proportion of the English drive themselves mad with a baroque cocktail of fury, snobbery and self-hatred over Gilbert and Sullivan
Original sin
Robert Thicknesse on the woes of modern, British opera
Alice in blunderland
The V&A reckons Alice in Wonderland is a self-help manual in the sex-war rather than the daydreams of an old Oxford perv
Most Read
The martyrdom of Young Bob
On ebbing power of the political influencer
Losing control of the narrative
The British establishment no longer sets the terms of public debate over migration
Grooming gangs and the truth
We should not give ammunition to deniers of the grooming gangs scandal
Babies need women
Leaving children with only men who are not their parents is foolish and dangerous
Stop ignoring the Islamisation of our democracy
The British state is bending to Islamism, not attempting to defeat it
Kemi Badenoch was right about the chaos in Clapham
Rioting as entertainment is a First World phenomenon
The battle between sacred and profane
When the divine law appears to clash with our sense of justice, can it truly be considered divine?
The government must end its war on the price mechanism
The government is stubbornly ignoring the harms and risks of its interventions into markets
Joyous genre-bending
Milestones (Signum Classics)
Brexit was not an act of economic self-harm
Whatever you have heard, UK-EU trade is doing just fine
Exactly my bag
Travel they say, broadens the mind. It can also empty the pockets
The rise and fall of Nicola Sturgeon
The former SNP leader squandered her talents in a classic tale of hubris
Life for petty theft?
IPP sentences are a shocking stain on the criminal justice system that the Prime Minister would do well to kill off
Suicide of an author’s credibility
Matt Goodwin has done the causes that he represents no favours with his new book
Keep the state out of sex
Bureaucracy should not be allowed into the bedroom
Fear and fury in Belfast
Violence spiralled out of control in Northern Ireland in the aftermath of a shocking crime