Time + Trace
Larry braves an early morning exhibition preview of David Rickard’s latest show at the Sumarria Lunn Gallery in Mayfair and discovers that installation art can be a better brain-stimulus than coffee.
Browsing: The Culturist
Music from the Penguin Cafe
“I am the proprietor of the Penguin Cafe. I will tell you things at random.” These words reverberated around the head of composer Simon Jeffes. This is the sound of someone you love who’s going away and it doesn’t matter…
Possession
Steve Thompson, whose film recommendations are frankly starting to worry us here at The Arb, confesses his rather dirty love for Andrzej Zulawski’s 1981 twisted horror-drama, Possession.
The Young Guns
Following the success of Sam Leach’s sell-out Platonia exhibition in Mayfair last September and Kieran…
A Tale of Two Operas
Paul Guest reviews two of the operas from The Royal Opera’s spring season, Fidelio and The Tsar’s Bride, which will both be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 this month.
The Cherry Orchard
‘Straw-hatted melancholy’. Is there a more dismissive way of referring to one of the greatest…
Led Zeppelin IV
My reactions to music are purely emotional: love, hatred or indifference. Music is only important…
Gilliam’s Damnation of Faust
Alex Larman, eagle-eyed journalist and cultural commentator with a voracious hunger for all things splendiferous, visits the ENO to experience Terry Gilliam’s operatic production of The Damnation of Faust.
Another Brick in the Wall
As a schoolkid, a curious Steve Thompson was always on the look-out for mysteries to solve. Little wonder he is enchanted by the 2005 high-school detective neo-noir flick, Brick.
Cabaret: An Endangered Sub-Culture
Tom Garton, face twitching suggestively from an ocular injury, meets Kabarettist Sigi Zimmerschied in Passau, Bavaria, to investigate the political shyness and culture shift that are putting classic cabaret under threat.
The Young Elizabeth
Young soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn has had a difficult ride. After gaining a scholarship to study…
Barenboim: A View from the Bridge
Last week, Daniel Barenboim took to the Tate Modern Turbine Hall Bridge to give a one-off, all-Chopin concert with the Staatskapelle Berlin. Our wild-haired, roving music critic Paul Guest reports…