Steven C Smith Oxford University Press 978-0-197-68128-2 312pp (hb) £31.99 Theirs remains one of the most thrilling composer-director collaborations of all time, and while Bernard Herrmann and Alfred

In 1966, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO brought together the worlds of avant-garde art, European cool and downtown rock’n’roll in one explosive package. Sixty years on, the survivors share tales of drugs, breakdowns, burnouts, blocked toilets and hospital beds – and, of course, the creation of some of the most important music ever made. “We only did things our way,” learns Tom Pinnock . “We were arrogant, perhaps, in thinking we knew best. We were also right. We did know best…”

Dir Andrzej Zuławski, France/West Germany, 1981 Second Sight Films, 4K/Blu-ray There’s a phenomenon in film fandom right now in which people comb over every image, set design, set dressing and so fort

When a young Russian singer suggested to Tchaikovsky in 1877 that he compose an opera based on Eugene Onegin, Alexander Pushkin’s famous novel-in-verse, he dismissed it as a “crazy” idea. “Then, durin

There are welcome revivals of Ayckbourn and Stoppard plays, plus a brilliant production of a Western classic

NORMA sat on her parents’ sofa and sipped her tea. It was Saturday afternoon, one of her favourite times of the week. She’d finished work at the newsagents at lunchtime and now, she had a relaxing aft