The Critics
Frivolous and doomed
Classicism still has its place at the National Theatre
The dead-end art of conspiracy
Should art dissect conspiracy theories or immerse itself in them?
UnappEaling comedy
A “loose, loose reimagining” of Kind Hearts And Coronets does not really work
Graphics, games and occult entities
A retrospective of Treister’s work reveals the frictions in the artist’s motivations
Borne back into the past … of Bolton
Oh no, not another cliche!
A great tribute to a giant of the theatre
Two major revivals of Tom Stoppard’s work
A show to make you afraid of the dark
Opera is the repository of everything crass and depraved in what is laughingly called European “civilisation”
Crime thrillers 101
A new heist movie is basic and fun
Mehta’s protest over the Gaza war
In the run-up to his 90th birthday, Zubin Mehta decided to sever contact with Israel
The (bearable) weight of being
If art can help the mind, we must focus on the art
Most Read
Why they hated Ann Widdecombe
Fair-minded people could agree or disagree with her opinions. Left-wing bigots hated her for not abandoning them
Gary Stevenson is wrong about wealth taxes
The popular economist is irritating, but more importantly he is mistaken
Solent mean
Solent PhD student frozen out after introducing Roger Scruton into seminar
A chaplain’s vindication
The case of Dr Bernard Randall has exposed the rot in our institutions
The myth of banned books
If transgression is fun and easy, it is probably not transgressive
The vibe shift is a myth
Far from living through an age of cultural rebellion, we are seeing the imposition of cultural conformity
The wonders of Whistler
A new exhibition offers calm stillness — mostly
To defeat populism, don’t start here
Views that would be charming in their naivety, were they not so contradictory or facile
We need to make a better case against Magic Monetary Theory
Simplistic rebuttals help MMT endure. We need better arguments
Peston’s Inbox
Keir has my complete backing – Wes
Undramatic life of a literary also-ran
Malcolm Cowley never understood very much about literature
The global migration compact trap
The UN migration compact may be non-binding, but its political effects are very real
Fear and fury in Belfast
Violence spiralled out of control in Northern Ireland in the aftermath of a shocking crime
Lebanon’s finest
Henry Jeffreys savours some reds and whites from the Bekaa valley
Reimagining the people’s palace
A building that deserves to be admired as an example of intelligent and sophisticated urban planning
Marriage and muscular liberalism
The Fury controversy exposes the contradictions behind Britain’s new marriage laws