Thirst class: ‘The Elixir of Love’, English National Opera, London

ENO’s new production of ‘The Elixir of Love’ is a witty and affectionate take on Donizetti’s comic romance, beautifully realised and performed. On entering the auditorium of the Coliseum, you immediately notice something a little out of the ordinary. Instead of the normal safety curtain, a big screen spans the stage, showing a stylised drawing…

Into the abyss: ‘The Zone of Interest’

I’m writing this piece, about the film ‘The Zone of Interest’, on the evening of Monday 11 March, 2024. I sketched a few rough notes out last night, then went to bed – waking this morning, of course, to news of the Oscar winners. I like to think this movie received the two awards that…

Kollwitz’s War and Grief at the British Museum

‘Woman with Dead Child, 1903. Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945)   Käthe Kollwitz, née Schmidt, is not a name I had come across in the art world until the British Museum’s show.  Born in 1867, in Königsberg, East Prussia, Kollwitz established herself as a leading, influential graphic artist by the time the First World War came about….

Don McCullin

Don McCullin, who has a fair claim to the title of the UK’s greatest living photographer, was born in 1935 in Finsbury Park – a bloody tough area of London before the war, and even more so after, when much of it had been bombed flat. The first photograph McCullin was paid for, in 1958,…