Sophocles
A cremation caper: Stealing Dad, by Sofka Zinovieff, reviewed
Part grief-memoir, part macabre escapade, Zinovieff’s latest book is inspired by her own father’s bizarre strictures regarding his funeral
Homeric levels of misery
The National Theatre has given Sophocles’s Philoctetes a makeover and a new title, Paradise. This must be ironic because the…
High life
Gstaad The sun has returned, the snow is so-so, and exercise has replaced everything, including romance. What a way to…
Ancient and modern: Antigone and algorithms
Hardly a day goes by without someone making excitable predictions about human progress and how, thanks to AI, we are…
Myth-making
For years I have been telling people that they should listen to, in the absence of staged performances, Enescu’s opera…
Fancy that
When women lust after blokes on telly it’s funny, not seedy
High life
Thick snow is falling hard and heavy, muffling sounds and turning the picturesque village postcard beautiful. I am lying in…
Women of Thebes
What if the gods of Greek myth had parallels with Freud’s notion of the unconscious? This is just one idea…
Sister act
First, a bit of background. Conquering Agamemnon slew his daughter, Iphigenia, in return for a fair wind to Troy. This…
Oedipus wrecks
I had high hopes for Julian Anderson’s first opera, Thebans. Premièred at the Coliseum last Saturday, it promised to mark…
Decline and fall
It’s an unlovely venue, for sure. Charing Cross Theatre, underneath the arches, likes to welcome vagrant plays that can’t find…
