Ben Lawrence

A new stage musical adaptation of Trainspotting, written in part by Irvine Welsh, is criticised for its incoherent tone and reliance on the film’s iconic moments. Despite some strong performances and well-directed scenes of addiction, the production’s mix of borrowed soundtrack elements, new songs and diluted staging undermines its impact. Jazz‑hands musical numbers clash with the characters’ nihilism, and iconic scenes lose their comic power on stage. Standout performances from Lewis Kidd, Sheridan Townsley and Rosie Dignan offer highlights, but the production struggles to justify its existence compared with Danny Boyle’s influential film.

Jack Parlett’s Flamboyance combines a history of flamboyant expression with a Gen Y memoir about identity, acceptance, masculinity, addiction and sobriety. The book traces flamboyance from Gothic architecture and Oscar Wilde through queer subcultures, pop music, drag and contemporary social media, showing how it has functioned both as protection and as a challenge to social norms. Ben Lawrence praises its erudition, emotional force and celebration of figures such as Jason Holliday and Derek Jarman, while criticising some autobiographical overreach and occasional anachronism. The review concludes that, despite the commercialisation of flamboyance by social-media celebrities, the book preserves its political and human significance.

The piece argues that celebrity performers and prominent actors are essential to the survival of subsidized and regional theatre, particularly amid stagnant funding and low ticket sales. Michael Sheen’s Welsh National Theatre and Alan Cumming’s leadership of the Pitlochry Festival are presented as examples of stars attracting audiences, investment and attention despite complaints about preferential treatment and distorted pay. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s casting of Mark Gatiss and Kenneth Branagh is similarly defended as commercially rational, while broader arts councils are criticized for failing to provide sufficient funding.

John Keats’s passionate letters to Fanny Brawne, including the famous July 1819 declaration of love, are presented as an unusually intimate record of literary romance, jealousy and impending tragedy. Eight letters stolen from the collection of former US ambassador Jock Whitney were recovered after an attempted sale and will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York on June 25, with an estimated value of $1.5–2.5 million. The surviving correspondence, written while Keats was increasingly ill with tuberculosis, offers an emotionally raw counterpoint to his poetic theories and has helped immortalize his relationship with Brawne.

Patrick Gale discusses how his family history inspired his new novel Love Lane, which revisits his great-grandfather Harry Cane and fictionalizes several relatives, including his parents and grandparents. He reflects on his father’s sexuality, his mother’s experience of sexual assault, growing up around prisons, attending Winchester College, surviving the AIDS crisis and using writing to manage depression. Gale also describes the severe economic pressures facing Cornish farming, the damaging effects of second homes and rural deprivation, and criticizes the Booker Prize’s inclusion of American authors. Future projects include a television adaptation of A Place Called Winter and a gardening novel.

Martin Parr is praised as one of Britain’s most influential photographers and its greatest chronicler of contemporary life. The article acknowledges criticism that his focus on working-class and poorer communities can amount to class tourism, but argues that his images also contain playfulness, ambiguity and warmth. Five photographs are used to illustrate his distinctive treatment of British leisure, privilege, seaside culture and the behavior of English tourists abroad.

The Royal Ballet and Opera’s decision to use dynamic pricing for Barrie Kosky’s production of Wagner’s Siegfried has prompted criticism because the most expensive seats will cost more than £400. The pricing model is defended as a way to maximize revenue from wealthy patrons while preserving low-cost tickets, including seats priced at £19, for less affluent opera fans. The Royal Opera House faces reduced public subsidy, the loss of BP sponsorship and repayment of a £21.7 million Covid-era loan, while productions of the Ring cycle require exceptional resources. The article argues that dynamic pricing is therefore a practical measure to sustain artistic ambition and wider access rather than an elitist policy.

Ben Lawrence argues that artists should not be erased because of reprehensible personal views or conduct. Using Abdulrazak Gurnah's criticism of V. S. Naipaul as a starting point, he contends that Naipaul's racism and abusive behavior should be acknowledged without discarding the literary achievement of works such as A House for Mr Biswas. The piece similarly cites Michael Jackson, J. K. Rowling, George Bernard Shaw and Charles Dickens to argue that cancellation rarely works and that biography should not eclipse artistic value. Great art, Lawrence concludes, can outlast both public disgrace and changing cultural fashions.