Today’s highlights
Art
Edvard Munch, beyond The Scream
Edvard Munch was the tortured artist of legend – but he was also highly prolific, highly popular and cherished by a network of family and friends
The flowering of Anselm Kiefer
Arresting and alarming, consoling and unashamedly beautiful, two exhibitions in Amsterdam and one in Oxford are showing the work of arguably the most significant living artist
Max Ernst’s marvellous madness
A new exhibition focuses on the surrealist’s cinematic adventures
Tracey Emin: ‘Brexit was hideous and heinous’
The acclaimed artist takes Florence in her first institutional solo show in Italy
The poster artists firing back at Musk and Trump
An exhibition of artworks telling the terrifying story of MAGA and Trump’s second coming has made it on to the streets of London in poster form
How the Dutch hold back the sea
A new exhibition at the University of East Anglia celebrates the art of keeping your head above water
Books
Jerzy Kosiński, the writer whose last act was to plagiarise himself
However his works might have been assembled and whatever dissembling he did when talking about his life, Jerzy Kosiński was a master storyteller
Where have all the monsters come from?
Evil gods and terrifying clawed beasts have haunted the human imagination for thousands of years. But what are monsters now, in this age of science?
Sinners is much more than a grisly vampire movie
At its heart of this film is the megawatt screen charisma of Michael B Jordan and a deep appreciation of the blues
Douglas Murray: shallow book, narrow mind
Reducing the complex history of Israel and Palestine to a battle of good vs evil is wilfully misleading. No wonder Trump has endorsed it
Contemporary fiction is getting boring
The most important advice I’ve ever given myself about reading a book: if at first you don’t succeed, give up
Donald Trump, the real-life Captain Ahab
From Titus Andronicus to Goldfinger and Dolores Umbridge, the deranged president resembles a rogue’s gallery of literary characters – and none of them are heroes
Music
Camilo Sesto, the singer who ushered Spain into a new age
A new museum in Alicante celebrates the Jesus of Madrid
Mutilated angels: the barbaric and beautiful world of the castrati
A new exhibition tells the disturbing story of the brutalised boys who became 18th-century London’s biggest musical celebrities
When Dexter Gordon came to Denmark
Denmark has recently ranked second on the World Happiness Report and the capital’s love of jazz is a reflection of that
The rise of recession pop
It’s terrible that it exists, but my generation has only known crisis, chaos and the pandemic, so we may as well play it loud
Sinners is much more than a grisly vampire movie
At its heart of this film is the megawatt screen charisma of Michael B Jordan and a deep appreciation of the blues
The Beatles vs Andrew Tate
One of the Beatles’ great gifts was to reconcile masculinity with emotional intelligence
Film
Trump’s failures behind the curtain
Donald Trump swore he would face down the world – then blinked first. His aura is damaged for ever
Jerzy Kosiński, the writer whose last act was to plagiarise himself
However his works might have been assembled and whatever dissembling he did when talking about his life, Jerzy Kosiński was a master storyteller
The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and the questions the Met left unanswered
To this day, the family of de Menezes has received no true justice for his killing
Mussolini, Trump and me
‘When did anti-fascism become controversial?’ Director Joe Wright on the future of M: Son of the Century, his streaming series about Italy’s fascist dictator
Maria Schell, Hollywood’s grounded alien
A serious artist, the Austrian actress made the fatal mistake of failing to live up to something she had never been in the first place
Sinners is much more than a grisly vampire movie
At its heart of this film is the megawatt screen charisma of Michael B Jordan and a deep appreciation of the blues
Theatre
The play that gets Oscar Wilde right
The Importance of Being Oscar is a personal triumph for actor Alastair Whatley
Sweat, the play Donald Trump should watch
How did Trump secure a second term? Why has he started a tariff war? The 2017 winner of the Pulitzer prize for drama offers an explanation
The Alto Knights is Robert De Niro’s victory lap
Barry Levinson’s true-crime gangster story is a pleasing encapsulation of five decades of cinematic culture
Black Bag will keep you guessing until the very end
Forty years since his first feature film, Steven Soderbergh has rarely been better
The Seagull is an evening of convention-busting Chekhov
The imaginative liberties on show here are the trademark of director Thomas Ostermeier
Review: You wait ages for a great role for a woman.. in Backstroke, two come at once
Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig are funny, tragic and unforgettable
Great European Lives
Jerzy Kosiński, the writer whose last act was to plagiarise himself
However his works might have been assembled and whatever dissembling he did when talking about his life, Jerzy Kosiński was a master storyteller
Maria Schell, Hollywood’s grounded alien
A serious artist, the Austrian actress made the fatal mistake of failing to live up to something she had never been in the first place
Totò, the unlucky actor who took it on the chin
That he remained upbeat despite his many misfortunes was amazing. That he managed to make his home country laugh for over half a century borders on the miraculous
Karl and Bertha Benz, the couple who drove into history
In common with so many of the great pioneers, the inventor could add to his own gifts the blessing of a truly formidable spouse
Rob Pilatus, the new Elvis who signed a deal with the devil
He was one half of Milli Vanilli. So was he a failure, a fraud – or an extraordinary success?
Jules Verne, the writer who travelled in his imagination
The Frenchman always stressed that he was a writer of science fact, not science fiction