Culture

Katherine Cross The hotly anticipated game sequel Hades II presents a rare and elegant meld of design and expressiveness.

A E Macleod Under the rusty annexe that must once have belonged to something else, that is held together with cobwebs and ribbons, we don’t mean to mention dead mother but we do. Dead mother, who aren’t in heaven, we say in unison, in deep voices as if we are …

Luke Goodsell Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man, is a perfectly balanced romp.

Andy Jackson I’m told humans can only genuinely experience a natural environment by staying still for at least 10 minutes. Only then do birds and other animals begin to emerge from their cautious retreat. There’s a similar dynamic to reading Ben Walter’s Lithosphere, …

Mark Young A line from Wassily Kandinsky (2) Fish do not have hands but do display a breathless, almost childlike, quality, even in emails. Everyday activities can often be   the most meaningful signifiers. I want to create that exclamation mark …

Stephen A. Russell For director Constantine Costi, all the world’s a stage, whether it’s an opera production or a porridge-making competition in a Scottish village.

Carolyn Barnes Song of the Earth, the first comprehensive survey of John Nixon’s art practice from the 1960s until his death in 2020, is a testament to his tireless creativity.

Andy Hazel The latest iteration of the Marrakech International Film Festival – the Arab world’s most important – highlights the triumphs and trials of the human spirit.

Harriet Cunningham Pinchgut Opera’s new realisation of Handel’s Messiah strips it back to its first scoring in 1742 – and it is an undiluted joy.

Fiona Wright In the introduction to Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, Margaret Atwood writes that “every writer is at least two beings: the one who lives, and the one who writes” and claims that these two beings have “less idea than you’d think” …

Fiona Murphy “I can resist!” Anne Enright declares as she walks through Dublin, trying desperately not to think about the histories impressed upon the most innocuous corners of her city. When this proclamation appears in Enright’s collection of essays – Attention: …

Madeleine Gray Novels written in prose poetry are not for everyone. It takes a very devoted reader to commit to a whole book comprising devolving sentences, words spaced out like patterns, dialogue merging with description. There can be beautiful, accessible prose poetry …