Simon Russell Beale Q&A: “I like the look of Macron! Let’s see what he comes up with“
The celebrated actor talks camels, the French Revolution, and playing the piano.
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The Maybot malfunctions
Putting the NHS out to corporate tender isn’t working
The rota developed more gaps than an exceptionally holey piece of Emmental cheese.
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Is it time we gave Bono a break?
We are conditioned to be annoyed by everything the U2 frontman does.
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My laptop’s memory is full and its functions impaired – I know how it feels
I mean, seriously, what is the point?
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Your daily rations for the Tour de France: 11 generous portions of moules frites
Alternatively, 22 croissants, or 32 slices of tarte tatin.
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Algernon Blackwood’s Ghost Stories and why horror is better in the heat
Actress Ruth Gemmell chills on BBC Radio 4 Extra.
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The Rise & Fall of Geoffrey Matthews is a magnificent tale of an extraordinary man
Morgan Matthews impresses with his BBC4 documentary This Was My Dad.
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Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled brings one refreshing element: a female eye
Her delicate touch as a director keeps the mood frisky, even at its most fraught.
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Soul of a Nation: a revelatory exhibition telling the story of black art
Tate Modern offers a powerful glimpse into the civil rights struggle.
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Making headlines: the Sun newspaper and the Kids Company scandal hit the stage
Two fashionable new plays, Ink and Committee, look behind the front page stories.
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Why you should listen to Haim
The band’s new album Something to Tell You combines mature lyrics and ridiculously catchy hooks.
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Signal Failure reveals what it’s like to walk the path of HS2
Author Tom Jeffreys trekked from London to Birmingham, and found no easy answers.
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Ocean Vuong’s poetry brims with precise, surreal and erotic imagery
Paul Batchelor reviews his Night Sky with Exit Wounds, plus new works from Adam O’Riordan and Colette Bryce.
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Folk horror, a history: from The Wicker Man to The League of Gentlemen
Author Adam Scovell’s tone is perfectly pitched between articulate academic and box-set binger.
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The Idiot is animated by the pleasures and frustrations of different forms of knowledge
Elif Batuman’s novel follows an 18-year-old aspiring writer through her first year at Harvard.
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Diving for pearls: Philip Hoare’s book is a meditation on the sea
RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR sometimes feels like drifting, from Cromarty to Cape Cod to Porthmadog.
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Billy Bragg writes an uptempo history of skiffle’s golden age
Roots, Radicals and Rockers is full of great characters and vignettes of bracingly different times.
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Promises Had Been Made
A new poem by Declan Ryan.
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Worshipping the tennis god: is Roger Federer really an “artist”?
Christopher Jackson’s book tries to explain the delirium of the Wimbledon champion’s devotees.
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How Henry David Thoreau still surprises, 200 years after his birth
The rich legacy of the American nature writer, tax dodger, moralist, activist . . . and pencil manufacturer.
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Cruel to be kind: the radicalism of Robert Icke
The Almeida’s young associate director has a reputation for criticising the rest of the theatre world. But, he says,…
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Mosul has fallen, but Islamic State is far from defeated
IS tells its members they are divinely obligated to fight for its cause, but that results come from God.
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Jeremy Corbyn, Emmanuel Macron and the age of volatility
The rise of populism in Britain and France is the result of a restless “crowd electorate”. Both countries’ future…
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The most powerful woman in Brussels: who is Margrethe Vestager?
The European commissioner for competition is taming the tech giants.
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Why are writers burying stories in a forest in Norway?
Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell and more take part in the Future Library project.
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“Britain’s voice is going to diminish, I’m afraid”: Nicholas Soames warns of a “near-fatal” Brexit
“It was a catastrophe,” says the Tory MP and grandson of Churchill about the June general election.
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Commons Confidential: Exploding Boris’s ego
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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A year after the failed coup in Turkey, the purge goes on
The families of the almost 250 people killed in July 2016 may never see justice.
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What I learned about justice while watching the All Blacks take on the Lions
The rugby referee, unavoidably, now adjudicates as much as he officiates.
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Alison Phillips’ Diary
The journalist on column inspiration, Harry Styles, and a package from Mosul.
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If we’re going to scrap tuition fees, university should be truly universal
Courses would not be flooded with idiots any more than public libraries are besieged by illiterates.
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Theresa May’s premiership is doomed – her analysis is right but her solutions aren’t
Her “relaunch” has only brought her sell-by date closer.
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An epic tale of hubris and humiliation: Theresa May’s masochism premiership
She won the ultimate prize, and then tossed it away so carelessly.
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Leader: The disintegrating PM
Theresa May’s difficulty is others’ opportunity, including those Tories scheming to bring her down.
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