Arts Reviews

Ralph Fiennes at his most terrifying: The Menu reviewed

The Menu is a comedy-horror-thriller set in an exclusive restaurant on a private island and it gives the rich a good kicking, like The Triangle of Sadness, except here they manage to keep their food down, mercifully. (At $1,200 a head, you’d hope so.) But the diners are not spared otherwise, and it’s nastily fun, if not pure evil, and should possibly come with a warning: after this, you will never, ever wish to dine anywhere that isn’t Nando’s. The film is directed by Mike Mylod with a screenplay by Will Tracy and Seth Reiss. (Both Mylod and Tracy have worked on Succession.) The opening sees the group of diners waiting to take the boat over to the island where the restaurant, Hawthorne, is located. One is Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), a super-wealthy foodie and snob who has watched every episode of Chef’s Table multiple times and considers chefs true artists as ‘they play with the raw materials of life’.

Richard Bratby

Hugely entertaining: Royal Opera’s Alcina reviewed

Rod Liddle

What’s the point of these soul covers? Bruce Springsteen’s Only the Strong Survive reviewed

Mathew Lyons

The bleak brilliance of Peanuts

Michael Hann

Odd, rich and adventurous: Erykah Badu, at the Royal Festival Hall, reviewed

Rupert Christiansen

Exhilarating: English National Ballet triple bill, at Sadler’s Wells, reviewed

James Walton

Riveting: C4’s Who Stole the World Cup reviewed

Lloyd Evans

Rebecca Humphries is dynamite – pity about the play: Blackout Songs, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed

Richard Bratby

Hugely entertaining: Royal Opera’s Alcina reviewed

Rod Liddle

What’s the point of these soul covers? Bruce Springsteen’s Only the Strong Survive reviewed

Mathew Lyons

The bleak brilliance of Peanuts

Michael Hann

Odd, rich and adventurous: Erykah Badu, at the Royal Festival Hall, reviewed

Rupert Christiansen

Exhilarating: English National Ballet triple bill, at Sadler’s Wells, reviewed

James Walton

Riveting: C4’s Who Stole the World Cup reviewed

Lloyd Evans

Rebecca Humphries is dynamite – pity about the play: Blackout Songs, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed

Laura Gascoigne

The careers of artists like Carolee Schneemann and Stephen Cripps are unthinkable today

Laura Gascoigne

The careers of artists like Carolee Schneemann and Stephen Cripps are unthinkable today

During the 1964 debut of Carolee Schneemann’s ‘Meat Joy’ in Paris, a man in the audience tried to throttle the artist before being hauled off by three female spectators. Schneemann’s performance, an ‘exuberant sensory celebration of flesh’, involved semi-naked dancers tangling and grappling while bits of chicken, raw fish and hot dogs rained from above and buckets of paint sloshed underfoot. Since her expulsion from Bard College ten years earlier for the ‘moral turpitude’ of painting herself in the nude, Schneemann had made a name for getting naked while persisting in calling herself a painter – a claim that was just about tenable in the case of ‘Meat Joy’, less so in the case of ‘ICES STRIP/ISIS TRIP’ (1972), her one-woman performance on a London to Edinburgh festival train which started with a striptease in the dining car while reciting Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and ended with her roller-skating up and down the aisle.

Lloyd Evans

The UK Drill Project, at The Pit, reviewed

Richard Bratby

A towering achievement: ENO’s The Yeomen of the Guard reviewed

Deborah Ross

Astonishing cinema: No Bears reviewed

Damian Thompson

King Charles III’s love of classical music

James Delingpole

Riveting: Netflix’s The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself reviewed

John Phipps

The extraordinary case of Malcolm MacArthur

Graeme Thomson

The joy of B-sides

Lloyd Evans

The UK Drill Project, at The Pit, reviewed

Richard Bratby

A towering achievement: ENO’s The Yeomen of the Guard reviewed

Deborah Ross

Astonishing cinema: No Bears reviewed

Damian Thompson

King Charles III’s love of classical music

James Delingpole

Riveting: Netflix’s The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself reviewed

John Phipps

The extraordinary case of Malcolm MacArthur

Graeme Thomson

The joy of B-sides

Deborah Ross

Heartbreakingly tender: Living reviewed

Deborah Ross

Heartbreakingly tender: Living reviewed

Living is a remake of one of the great existential masterpieces of the 20th century, Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952), which didn’t need remaking, many will grumble, but once you’ve seen this you’ll be glad that it was. It is as profoundly and deeply felt as the original and as heartbreakingly tender. It asks the same question – what makes a life meaningful? – but this time with Englishness, bowler hats, the sweet trolley at Fortnum’s and Bill Nighy. Really, what more could you want? The film is directed by Oliver Hermanus with a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, who first mooted the idea. He wrote it especially for Nighy, who is receiving some of the best reviews of his career and who we can now forgive for playing Davy Jones with a squid face in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Lloyd Evans

The dialogue ripples with energy: King Hamlin, at the Park Theatre, reviewed

Daisy Dunn

Manet’s Mona Lisa: Radio 4’s Moving Pictures reviewed

Michael Hann

A generational pop talent: Rina Sawayama, at the O2 Academy Brixton, reviewed

Tanjil Rashid

Kazuo Ishiguro: My love affair with film

James Walton

Refreshingly macho: BBC1’s SAS Rogue Heroes reviewed

Laura Gascoigne

Thrilling: Hieroglyphs – unlocking ancient Egypt, at the British Museum, reviewed

Richard Bratby

A total (and often gripping) theatrical experience: Scottish Opera’s Ainadamar reviewed

Lloyd Evans

The dialogue ripples with energy: King Hamlin, at the Park Theatre, reviewed

Daisy Dunn

Manet’s Mona Lisa: Radio 4’s Moving Pictures reviewed

Michael Hann

A generational pop talent: Rina Sawayama, at the O2 Academy Brixton, reviewed

Tanjil Rashid

Kazuo Ishiguro: My love affair with film

James Walton

Refreshingly macho: BBC1’s SAS Rogue Heroes reviewed

Laura Gascoigne

Thrilling: Hieroglyphs – unlocking ancient Egypt, at the British Museum, reviewed

Richard Bratby

A total (and often gripping) theatrical experience: Scottish Opera’s Ainadamar reviewed

Ben Lazarus

Tenderness and menace: Bob Dylan, at the London Palladium, reviewed

Ben Lazarus

Tenderness and menace: Bob Dylan, at the London Palladium, reviewed

Bob Dylan has always toyed with audiences. He plays what he wants, how he wants, letting his mood dictate tempo and often key (sometimes switching songs to the minor). On Dylan’s return to London for the first time in five years, he summed it up early. ‘I ain’t no false prophet/ I just know what I know,’ he gruffly sang. Dylan spent the night at the Palladium doing what he knows best, singing songs of love, loss and immortality. Covid temporarily ended his ‘Never-Ending Tour’, which had seen Dylan play more than 3,000 shows since 1988. Now it’s billed as ‘The Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour’, with the strapline: ‘Things aren’t what they were’. At the West End theatre they weren’t: Dylan, 81, mostly performed songs from his 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways (only the 17-minute long ‘Murder Most Foul’ was missing).