Arts feature
Public art
On his lockdown rambles, Christopher Howse finds beauty and solace in London’s street furniture
The original Edinburgh festival
James Sadler’s 1815 balloon flight, a Fringe first, heralded the greatest musical extravaganza that Scotland had ever seen, says John D. Halliday
‘Where I grew up, classical music was diversity’
Richard Bratby talks to Birmingham Opera Company’s new music director Alpesh Chauhan about his Brummie roots, Bruckner and how his BAME heritage is a non-story
Beauty and the beast
Michael Hann talks to Kevin Rowland about Dexys, insecurity and the cocaine years
The Murdoch I know
The BBC documentary on Rupert Murdoch is pure one-sided bile, says Kelvin MacKenzie
The miniaturists
Model villages deliver a cheerful jolt to unexamined notions about our own place – and size – in the world, says Richard Bratby
Reels on wheels
Tanya Gold on the rise and fall of drive-in cinema
Floor show
Sophie Haigney on the weird and wonderful world of hotel carpets
Going underground
Leaf Arbuthnot and Igor Toronyi-Lalic on the new cultural rebels
Homage to Avalonia
Televising Glastonbury has changed the festival, and in turn transformed television, says Graeme Thomson
Hidden figures
The statue-topplers reveal a Eurocentric view of the world that ignores the achievements of black and Asian luminaries, says Tanjil Rashid
Life after death
The coronavirus crisis offers theatre a golden opportunity to break free of the structures that have held it back for years, says William Cook
Small wonder
John Constable’s paintings of a tiny corner of rural Suffolk teach us to see the beauty on our doorstep, says Martin Gayford
Doo-wop deity
He toured with Little Richard, sang with Van Morrison, inspired the Beatles and Paul Simon. Graeme Thomson talks to Dion, one of the last living links to the early days of street-corner rock ’n’ roll
Swanky, stale and sullen
The summer music festival has had its day, says Norman Lebrecht
Human soup
The earliest depictions of the Americas were eye-popping, and shaped European art, says Laura Gascoigne
Candid camera
William Boyd on the miraculous snaps of boy genius Jacques Henri Lartigue
Mourning glory
Alexandra Coghlan on the enduring appeal of requiems
On the contrary
The Spectator arts and books pages have spent 10,000 issues identifying the dominant cultural phenomena of the day and being difficult about them, says Richard Bratby
Public enemy
Many performers hated playing live. But freed from the stage they often made their best and wildest work, argues Graeme Thomson
Great Scot
William Cook talks to Billy Connolly – welder, banjo player, comedian, actor, and now artist – about growing up in Glasgow, ditching the mike stand and living with Parkinson’s
A world apart
Holed up in her sixth-floor London flat, Laura Freeman finds solace in the art of the hermit
Closing time
War and plague have menaced theatres before, but rarely on this scale, says Lloyd Evans
The rise and fall of Peter Bogdanovich
David Thomson talks to the director about Buster Keaton, falling out of favour with Hollywood, and his mentor Orson Welles
Earthly powers
Exhibitions about fungi, bugs and trees illustrate the depth, range and vitality of a growing field of art, says Mark Cocker
