The Times - UK (2022-01-01)

the times | Saturday January 1 2022 saturday review 3

2022 highlights 4-7

Our critics pick the best arts to book —

theatre, dance, opera, classical music,

comedy, pop, visual art

What the critics are watching and listening to

showing this week

Contents

My culture

fix 8

The historian

William Dalrymple

on his cultural life,

including Prince

Books 12-17

The great literary lookahead: what to

read — whatever your tastes — in 2022

TV and radio 19-47

Attenborough’s Wonder of Song;

plus Jamie Dornan in The Tourist

Puzzles 48-51

Crosswords, sudoku and all your

favourite brain teasers

Cover photograph

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

FREDERIC BATIER/NETFLIX; SONIA BOYCE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, DACS

/ARTIMAGE 2021

Hugo

Rifkind

on TV 9

Around the

World in 80

Days reviewed

Book extract 10-11

Cathy Rentzenbrink, the author of The

Last Act of Love, collects tips from the

best writers on how to write a memoir,

in an extract from her new book

act 1011

Film

Munich: The Edge of War
Jeremy Irons has rarely been more capti-
vating and sympathetic than here, playing
Neville Chamberlain in a historical thriller
about the Munich Conference as seen
through the eyes of a young civil servant
(George MacKay). Based on the Robert
Harris novel of the same name, this is a
wholesale Chamberlain makeover, recast-
ing the much-maligned figure as a master
strategist who bought the Allies more time
to arm, train and prepare for a war that was
inevitable. The German director Christian
Schwochow gets the tone just right. In cin-
emas from Jan 7 and on Netflix from Jan 21
Kevin Maher

Television

The Tourist
With Jamie Dornan’s unnamed
character driven off the road by an
enormous lorry, this thriller’s open-
ing minutes are an obvious homage
to the classic 1971 Steven Spielberg
film Duel. Yet this miniseries soon
dances to the beat of its own drum
when our “Man” wakes up in hospi-
tal, his memory obliterated. The
scorched earth and blinding blue
skies add to the sense of menace, al-
though viewers might need to ignore
some minor plausibility gripes in Jack
and Harry Williams’s script to enjoy
its compelling and bumpy ride.
BBC1, tonight
Ben Dowell

Theatre

Folk
Nell Leyshon’s play is an elegiac por-
trait of one of this country’s lesser-
known musical pioneers, Cecil Sharp,
a musicologist and song collector who
hunted down the melodies and lyrics
of working people that form the basis
of today’s folk club repertoire. Set in
Somerset at the turn of the last century,
the drama shows how a would-be com-
poser with old-school preconceptions
about high and low culture encoun-
tered a new source of inspiration in
the fields and lanes. Hampstead Theatre,
London NW3 (hampsteadtheatre.com),
to Feb 5
Clive Davis

Dance

The Nutcracker

Pandemic permitting, the Royal Ballet is

planning to offer a final week of The

Nutcracker (performances were sadly

cancelled over Christmas) to relieve the

midwinter blues. Peter Wright’s sumptu-

ously traditional staging hits all the right

notes, from the thrill of young romance to

the elegant charms of a magical fantasy,

while Julia Trevelyan Oman’s gorgeous

designs evoke the artistic splendours of

19th-century Germany. All that and

Tchaikovsky’s most opulent score played

live. Royal Opera House, London WC2

(roh.org.uk), Tue-Jan 8

Debra Craine

Classical

National Youth Orchestra

With the sort of optimism that comes

from being among the country’s most

talented teenagers, the National Youth

Orchestra is blowing off the cobwebs

with concerts subtitled Open Up & Let

Loose!. Dance-infused pieces per-

formed at the Barbican in London

(Mon) put Rachmaninov’s Symphonic

Dances in the company of Ravel and

works by Dani Howard and Karim

Al-Zand. At the Warwick Arts Centre

(Fri) the Russian masterpiece is pref-

aced by Thomas Adès’s Dawn and

Gabriela Lena Frank’s Three Latin

American Dances. nyo.org.uk

Neil Fisher

Visual art

Life Between the Islands:

Caribbean-British Art 1950s-now

A vivid splash of colour to bring life

to the new year. This is the first

significant museum show to set out

to tell the in-depth story of art in

British-Caribbean culture. Visual

creativity, it argues, has played as

powerfully significant a role as any

musical or literary heritage. Em-

bracing a wide range of media, the

curators cast a bright light on a facet

of culture, catching it as it shines

at its most vibrant and bold, most histori-

cally intricate and politically entrenched.

Tate Britain, London SW1 (tate.org.uk), to

Apr 3

Rachel Campbell-Johnston

George MacKay and

Jeremy Irons in Munich:

The Edge of War.

Below: She Ain’t Holding

Them Up, She’s Holding

On, by Sonia Boyce

at Tate Britain

f t O w L f ( D w A ( a G A N V L C A t s t B c p m b c o

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