The Critics
Love among the sandwiches
Cesare, Somerset Opera, Frome Memorial Theatre
A show’s warning from the past
Blurring the line between art and activism
Stereophonic hits all the right notes
Watch events unfold from behind the mixing desk
A series of dreaming clichés
My Oxford Year is a trend-obsessed pastiche
The weird and wonderful fringe
Seek delights in vain at our main companies, but the fringe lets them gambol free
A fruitcake rather than an egghead
Somehow Alfred Brendel managed to appear both deadly serious and not serious at all
A hint of the mystical
Music has inspired two fine new productions
Fanning the flames of the firebird
D. H. Lawrence claimed the symbol of rebirth as his birthright
Mad for it
A review of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Opera Holland Park
Seek out The Ballad of Wallis Island
Soderbergh’s misses are better than a lot of other people’s hits
Most Read
The martyrdom of Young Bob
On ebbing power of the political influencer
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
Losing control of the narrative
The British establishment no longer sets the terms of public debate over migration
How religion shapes football fandom
The meaning of football is intertwined with the meaning of faith
The Real shooting match
Cue the bogus platitudes that leaders make about sport’s ability to heal divisions
Our oriental roots
Marian Boswall salutes the early plant
hunters who revolutionised gardening
It’s what you Makerfield of it
Andy Burnham may yet stop Reform, but victory would raise almost as many questions for Labour as defeat.
The judge’s verdict
Much of what is passed off as sport is no such thing
Don’t panic about “Angry Young Women”
Despite everything, most people are still fairly normal
Countryside counter-attack
A ban on trail hunting reveals a government more interested in cultural punishment than rural survival
Racing in revolt
The sport continues along a path towards its collapse, spurning any opportunity for reform
Hope and stories
Bicinia (Claves)
The cost of equal outcomes
By treating disparities in mental health detention as evidence of racism, the NHS is sacrificing safety
One year later
Despite the Supreme Court ruling, the gender argument is not going anywhere