Cush Jumbo
Jumbo soars in uneven Hamlet
Anne McElvoy gives kudos to Cush Jumbo, who has a star’s ability to rise above the inadequacies and shine bright
Too much disinformation
Mariana Spring is back, with another series to set the songbirds a-twitter
W.S. Gilbert
A wildly funny and slyly subversive comic genius who deftly skewered the mores of Victorian England
The morality of altruism
People have a limitless capacity to convince themselves that what’s right coincides with what’s best for them
The erotic art book banned by a pope
A rich tale of great artists, pornography and the papacy has made I Modi one of the most fabled of all books
March 2024: Letters to the Editor
Record-setting sons and founding fathers
Barking up the wrong tree
Insta-obsessed diners can’t see the food for the reels
The stench of Chanel No 5
Set mainly in Nazi-occupied Paris, The New Look tells the story of Coco Chanel and Christian Dior
Banning masks from protests is a bad idea
Anonymity can be essential to dissent against tyrannical regimes
Grandmasters: a meeting of great minds
Napoleon and Goethe: Touchstone of Genius by Raymond Keene
The City’s lights are dimming
The Square Mile is increasingly at risk of becoming an irrelevance
Recasting the Crown for modern Britain
This progressive historian’s real charge against the monarchic institution is one of “complacency”
