The Critics

Art must be rescued from identity

We should celebrate artists for what they do, not who they are

Booty and the green-eyed beast

What plays out as limpid tragedy on the page becomes trouser-dropping farce

Bob Dylan and the mystery of traditional music

In becoming Bob Dylan, Robert Zimmerman entered a mysterious, invisible world

Keeping in tune with the Times

Radio Times has become the mouthpiece of the BBC’s re-education unit

Danish thriller is a real diamond

A House of Dynamite deserves a genre all its own

Girls don’t just wanna have fun

“Blue Velvet” is a sinister, savage take on male violence and a feminine urge for vengeance

Sheer murder? It must be Christmas

Just as Ana de Armas was the heart of the first Knives Out, Josh O’Connor is this one’s

Relationship status: it’s complicated

Partenope, English National Opera, Coliseum

The year the mob called the tune

So much political meddling in music and so little resistance

Puzzles, Picassos and prophecies

Untangling this jumble is aesthetically pleasurable, but vexing intellectually