Theatre
Safe battles, safe applause
Our theatres fight yesterday’s battles to avoid confronting today’s risks
The irrational theatre
The state of the National Theatre is tragic indeed
Sympathy for the devil?
Those expecting a recipe for poulet à la Gazza may be disappointed
Enter stage right
Our new theatre critic promises to be fair and unmoved by doctrinaire groupthink
Bach and forth
The Score – Theatre Royal Haymarket
Can the stage regain its soul?
Theatre is being turned into a parasitic secondary art form
Arnold Leverett: Veteran Playwright
If the theatres staging his work are getting smaller, the list of his celebrity admirers is still extensive
The good book?
The show is a handy barometer of changing sensitivities about free speech in comedy
A shot of Christmas spirit
The Old Vic’s “A Christmas Carol” is properly affecting
Tawdry tales
The Tales of Hoffmann, Royal Opera House
Most Read
The establishment is still living in an immigration fantasy land
It is influential left-wingers, not the broader public, who have deluded themselves on mass migration
American strategy in Iran is wiser than it seems
President Trump’s intervention will leave the world safer than it was
Saint Nicola
Nicola Sturgeon wants sympathy for her husband’s crimes—but after years spent avoiding awkward questions, her latest reinvention may be the hardest sell yet.
On Britain as a capitalist command economy
It is neither neoliberal nor socialist but a secret third thing
Rewatching the English
English identity has become too surreal and discomfiting to define
Gender self-ID was never the law
Barrister Akua Reindorf KC speaks about the controversial trans guidance the government is so loath to implement
Class war in the upper house
The end of the Lords’ ancient
right to resolve peerage disputes
is the latest casualty of Labour’s
constitutional vandalism
Windy Whitty
Chris Whitty is wrong about so-called “fat jabs”
The right-wing case for social media
X and other platforms can be vital sources of unfashionable information and dissenting opinions
Progressivism and the police
The Diversity, Equality and Inclusion agenda promised a fairer form of policing, but has delivered a weaker one
Free speech is about principle, not political convenience
One might disagree with pro-Palestine radicals but that does not mean that they should be censored
Our new five-party system
First-past-the-post no longer means
an electoral carve-up between the
Tories and Labour, allowing “fringe”
parties real political influence
The strange birth of woo-woo
The glitzy LA supermarket chain and the Buddhist food cult behind your wellness smoothie
The ballad of Robbie and Harry
Sometimes, the struggle can become the art
Sexy sisters and holy hotties
Less Sister Simper, more Attila the Nun
The next chapter for The Critic
A request — and an opportunity!