James Graham’s Dear England is a tiresome ode to St Gareth Southgate
The National Theatre production presents the manager’s path to national saviour but fails to add anything of note to our footballing “story”.
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Michael Henderson
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Michael Henderson’s Diary: Rebranding cricket, resurrecting Ravel, and what Philip Larkin understood about England
When this plague is over I shall return to my sacred place: Derbyshire, our most handsome and underrated county.
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Appreciation: Colin Bell
Dubbed Nijinsky, after the champion racehorse, by Manchester City team-mates and fans, the unparalleled footballer was a modest man with…
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How I finally learned to love jazz music
Growing up in the Sixties, a child of the pop age, jazz barely grazed me. Now, I see it’s…
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Roll on forever, champion cricketer
“I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.” John O’Hara’s tribute to George Gershwin, when the…
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The joy of festival cricket, pastime of small towns
“There can be no summer in this land without cricket,” wrote Neville Cardus, the man who invented sports writing,…
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Paris, New York, Chipping Campden: the surprising musical and literary heritage of a small Cotswolds town
May in Chipping Campden. Unlike April in Paris, or autumn in New York, nobody has mythologised it in song.…
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Why JB Priestley matters
He is now best known for that dramatic pot-boiler, An Inspector Calls. But Priestley’s gripping novels show an instinctive…
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Pelléas et Mélisande at Glyndebourne: ill-conceived and frequently absurd
What a ghastly mess.
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