Today’s post is the first in a new series on the site: a collection of interviews with leading figures in the UK’s cultural sector (particularly in music), exploring what individuals and organisations do and how their work has been affected by the COVID-19 crisis. And crucially, every guest has been
For centuries, and for a host of different reasons, it has been traditional practice in many countries for a new bride to be carried over the threshold of her new home by her husband. Whether a symbol of ownership, avoiding bad spirits, or the public marking of a new life
A few weeks ago, some friends of mine travelled abroad for a European city break. When they returned and we’re telling me what they’d got up to, they giggled at the memory of one evening, spent sitting in a restaurant and having a fine meal and a lively conversation. Apparently
In June 2013, on a clear summer’s evening, I staggered out of the London Coliseum and made my way to the Hungerford Bridge. Leaning over the railings, I stared out at the water, took deep breaths, and tried to sort myself out before heading back to Waterloo on my way
Dear Santa, It’s been a while – hope the reindeer are holding up after all this year’s adverts suggesting you’re travelling by minicab. I’m sure the folks at FIFA have been bothering you about it, too [ed.: Festive Institute of Flying Animals]. Still, at least the whole NSA scandal seems
News and drama. The two are, in modern terms, basically inseparable: stories hit the headlines precisely because they are dramatic, that things are at crisis point, that heads may roll. This is what makes for column inches. And also, as it happens, stirring opera plots. Appropriately enough, then, the New
It has taken me several years to build up the courage that I thought I would require to see Marc-Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole at the Royal Opera House. This is not for any of the reasons I suspect you’re thinking. It’s not because of the subject matter. Or the swearing. Or
Some thoughts on opera, funding, and finding audiences… At the end of a week where the game of two halves rather lost its equal opportunities for both sides, newspaper and online debate has produced a raft of articles concerning a slightly different kind of inequality. When the 2015-18 Arts Council funding
