So sad about Tom Stoppard. I love his plays, and have been so blessed to see so many of them.

Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard dies at 88

Such a distressing story

observer.co.uk/style/featur.... What a beautiful tribute.

observer.co.uk/news/nationa... This is such a shock. I so loved reading her pieces and have been waiting for her return. So sad to learn this news.

It looks likely that the Chancellor will need to raise taxes in the autumn Budget. This is an opportunity to make the tax system fairer while also raising revenue. Lord David Willetts makes the case for equalising the tax treatment between pensioners and working-age people ⤵️

Just the most wonderful Peter Hammill concert at the Royal Festival Hall tonight.

Absolutely stunning solo performance by the incomparable Peter Hammill at @southbankcentre.bsky.social’s Royal Festival Hall tonight. A concert not so much of songs as musical dramas that completely held a rapt and rapturous audience. A terrific ‘Refugees’ encore on piano.

Two of my favourite writers! Geoff Dyer on Martin Amis on @mymartinamis.bsky.social

A great man. Tom Lehrer, Musical Satirist With a Dark Streak, Dies at 97 www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...

Tremendous performance by @theweatherstation.bsky.social at Chalk in Brighton this evening. Musically adventurous, emotionally rich, such lovely and challenging music.

What a riveting Oedipus @oldvictheatre.bsky.social with the tension of the drama enhanced by an intense modern dance Chorus. It may be set in ancient Thebes, but its exploration of the conflict between rationality on the hand and superstition and populism on the other is wonderfully contemporary.

Kyle MacLachlan's statement on the passing of David Lynch:

Kyle MacLachlan pays tribute to David Lynch "I will miss him more than the limits of my language can tell and my heart can bear. My world is that much fuller because I knew him and that much emptier now that he’s gone ... Thank you for everything"

Today is the fortieth birthday of basketball superstar LeBron James. So what better day to see King James at Hampstead Theatre, a fine play that examines male friendship and rivalry, camaraderie and ambition, through the prism of a shared love for the great man and his sport.

I was disappointed in Tate Britain’s ‘The 80s: Photographing Britain’ exhibition. The curation and commentary in the first few rooms parroted lazy far left narratives - which failed to reflect the political and social complexities of the time; and spoiled the interesting photos in the later rooms.

I found The Little Foxes at the Young Vic a powerful family drama in which everyone double-crosses everyone else.

So saddened by the death of John Cartwright. It was a pleasure and a privilege to work for him. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I thoroughly enjoyed The Importance of Being Earnest at the National Theatre. But I thought the production overegged the camp extravagance. The play is camp enough already.

Wonderful to see Bob Dylan so on form at the Royal Albert Hall tonight. He has such great stage presence - and magnificently reimagines so many of his songs new and old, from a haunting Key West to a beautifully stripped down version of It’s All Over Now Baby Blue.

Watched Juno and the Paycock at the Gielgud Theatre, and found the comic brilliance of Mark Rylance increasingly at odds with the darker themes that developed over the latter parts of the play.

Coriolanus is about an autocratic figure who refuses to accept democracy, so no contemporary resonances there. The production at the National Theatre is really impressive, growing better and stronger as the play progresses.

Robert Icke’s modern retelling of Oedipus is utterly brilliant. At Wyndham’s Theatre.

Giant at the Royal Court, about Roald Dahl, is a truly wonderful play about a difficult individual and his unpalatable views. Such great writing and performances.

What an engaging production of Eurydice - a reimagining of the Greek myth - at the wonderfully intimate Jermyn Street Theatre. The play explores the threads that bind and do not bind us throughout life.

I just noticed that because of an error on the index page of my personal site my post “Did William Empson have ADHD?” has till now been inaccessible from the index page. I thought it might be worthwhile to reup it anyway. www.artkavanagh.ie/Empson-ADHD....

The Whitney Museum of American Art has so many great paintings

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #2,493,091!

I really enjoyed Here In America, David Edgar’s new play at the Orange Tree Theatre, which dramatises the tension between Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan over how to respond to McCarthyism. A fine play about truth loyalty and political oppression.

A woman’s struggle to be fully recognised for her pioneering role in astronomy is the theme of The Lightest Element, an engaging new play at Hampstead Theatre.

There is such a rich variety of pictures at The Shape of Things: Still Life in Britain, the wonderfully curated exhibition at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester.

Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing is so witty insightful and profound. I was thrilled to see the new production at the Old Vic tonight.

The In the Eye of the Storm exhibition @royalacademy.bsky.social about modernism in Ukraine in the early C20 is really impressive

Acknowledgements in novels. They seem to be very common now, but I’ve read some recently that don’t have any. Who are among the holdouts? (At least in their latest books) • Kevin Barry • Rachel Cusk • Colm Tóibín Perhaps this is a generational thing, as these writers are all in their 50s/60s?