The Critics

A triumphant return

Jesus Christ Superstar, the London Palladium

Love on manoeuvres

La fille du régiment, Covent Garden

Spielberg’s ho-hum space chase

Those describing it as a masterpiece cannot have seen Saving Private Ryan or Schindler’s List

When art took on fascism (and lost)

Abstract activist concerns have overshadowed aesthetic production

Not mad for it

I Puritani, Royal Opera, Covent Garden

Sweeter the second time around

There’s a real weight to some lyrics once you’re nearer the end than the beginning

Let there be lightness

Black Comedy is best viewed as a breathtakingly accomplished technical exercise

Baddiel shoots, he doesn’t score

If you want to understand English football, you will get better answers knocking on doors in Burnley than Hampstead

Fisticuffs over the fourth movement

When did classical music become so disturbingly polite?

Wilde times at the country house

Gerald Barry’s outrageous The Importance of Being Earnest manages to overmatch the virtuoso original