OperaUpClose veer towards greatest-hits territory while a lupine concert holds toddlers transfixed
'I never wanted to be famous': Craig Logan on the Bros years
Saturday 30 July 2011
He quit Bros at 19 – and transformed himself into a music-industry mogul. Ian Burrell meets Craig Logan, reformed teen idol.
Watched by millions, the final act of a courtroom tragedy
Saturday 02 July 2011
I Was Douglas Adams's Flatmate, By Andrew McGibbon
Friday 25 February 2011
Andrew McGibbon currently makes a living as a writer and producer of broadcast comedy. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, he played drums in Morrissey's backing band. This brush with celebrity became the basis of a radio programme, which grew into a Radio 4 series – and which has now resulted in this odd collection of interviews with people who were once on first-name terms with the famous. "One person's unique encounter with a legend, by way of factotemry [or] flatmatery," McGibbon explains, creates "an unusual and very personal insight into the famous one, highlighting the ordinary... things about them or their behaviour that demythologise them." The dozen legends are almost all from a different era of fame, when celebrities were known for something other than celebrity itself. But besides that distinction, they're a bafflingly eclectic bunch.
Lucky Peterson, Ronnie Scott's, London
Wednesday 12 January 2011
Lucky Peterson sits unnoticed at the bar, fedora pulled low and dark coat draped on his shoulders. He must have gotten his name when, aged five, the legendary bluesman Willie Dixon saw him performing at his father's upstate New York roadhouse and produced his first record. He was already a stage veteran of two years. The skinny adult blues prodigy of the 1980s is a big man now, and vanished for a while with bad luck. Still only 45, he has older times in him. He devours Ronnie Scott's tonight.
Dick Griffey: Record producer and executive who spoke out against the exploitation of black musicians
Thursday 16 December 2010
With infectious, irresistible invitations to the dance-floor such as "And The Beat Goes On" by the Whispers, "A Night To Remember" by Shalamar and "Midas Touch" by Midnight Star, Sound of Los Angeles Records – commonly abbreviated to Solar – the West Coast label founded by Dick Griffey, provided the sunny, soulful soundtrack for much of the Eighties on both sides of the Atlantic.
Heaven 17, Corn Exchange, Brighton
Sunday 05 December 2010
Tony Blair's sister-in-law converts to Islam
Monday 25 October 2010
Tony Blair's sister-in-law, Lauren Booth, has become the latest in a long line of Western Islamic converts. From Chris Eubank to Jermaine Jackson to Alexander Litvinenko, she joins an eclectic list, yet she is markedly different from most of its names, for one key reason – she is female.
Misplaced affection: The art of losing isn't hard to master
Tuesday 17 August 2010
Terence Blacker: It's not unusual to act your age
Tuesday 06 July 2010
DVD: The Edge of Darkness (15)
Friday 11 June 2010
Mel Gibson's devoted cop daddy goes on the rampage when his 23-year-old "activist" daughter is blasted on his porch.
Florence Rawlings, Bush Hall, London
Monday 01 March 2010
As debut headline gigs go, there was always a chance that tonight would be anticlimactic, not least because Florence Rawlings had already graced Wembley Arena as support for Tom Jones.
Review of the Year 2009: Our culture critics' top-fives
Wednesday 23 December 2009
Album: The Rolling Stones, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! 40th Anniversary Deluxe (Polydor)
Friday 18 December 2009
Originally issued to confound Liver Than You'll Ever Be, a bootleg live album from the same American tour, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! arguably captured the Stones at the height of their powers, around the time of Let It Bleed, when they had found a more potent way out of the hippie impasse than most of their peers.
E Jane Dickson: The Left has lost the plot on private schools
Friday 09 October 2009
As the world now knows, Boris Johnson is an old Etonian who was a bit of a prat at Oxford. It isn't the worst thing about him. Yet, as party lines are drawn for a general election, our obsession with where politicians received their education is second only to the shattering importance of their wives' wardrobes.








