Chain smoking, p48

Contested Will, p11

White lies, p34

ARTS 38 Richard Bratby and

Gerard McBurney remember the life-force that was Spectator critic Michael Tanner 40 Television

Danny Dyer: How to Be a Man; Mammoth James Walton 42 Pop

The Hives; Hot Stamp Michael Hann Theatre Player Kings; Long Day’s Journey Into Night Lloyd Evans 44 Exhibitions

Bruegel to Rubens: Great Flemish Drawings Laura Gascoigne 46 Cinema

Sometimes I Think About Dying Deborah Ross 47 Classical music

Hallé, Adès; Manon Lescaut Richard Bratby The gamer House Flipper 2 Sam Leith

LIFE

LIFE 53 No life Lloyd Evans 54 Real life Melissa Kite 55 The turf Robin Oakley

Bridge Janet de Botton 56 The Vintage Chef Olivia Potts 57 Wine club Jonathan Ray AND FINALLY . . . 48 Notes on… Kippers

Andrew Watts 58 Chess Luke McShane

Competition Lucy Vickery 59 Crossword Mr Magoo 60 No sacred cows

Toby Young Battle for Britain Michael Heath 61 Sport

Roger Alton Your problems solved Mary Killen 62 Food

Tanya Gold Mind your language Dot Wordsworth

Youth Demand held a ‘Youth Assembly’ to discuss the next targets of their direct action. They wrote ideas on big sheets of paper: ‘Rishi Sunak pool/pond – dyeing it red’; ‘CEOs’ houses’; ‘Planes/private jets’; ‘Eton’; ‘Transgressive stuff ’. Max Je f fer y, p2 4

Now that we are super-sensitive about which actors play which roles, what about plain-face? When beautiful women pretend they are not. Deborah Ross, p46

We have shepherd’s pie. They bring Lea & Perrins sauce unasked – and this is when I know this is a perfect restaurant. Tanya Gold, p62

CONTRIBUTORS

Michael Karam is a British-Lebanese author and journalist, and the author of Wines of Lebanon. On p14, he explains why the Lebanese always return home.

John Sutherland, who writes about the history of book-making on p32, is Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus of English at University College, London.

the spectator | 20 april 2024 | www.spectator.co.uk

Emma Beddington, who reviews a disconcerting collection of short stories on p32, is the author of We’ll Always Have Paris: Trying and Failing to be French.

Ian Buruma is the former editor of the New York Review of Books and author of The Collaborators. He writes about the Dreyfus affair on p34.

Gerard McBurney is a composer, educator, broadcaster and writer. On p38 he recalls how Michael Tanner’s Wagner evenings in Cambridge changed his life.

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