Every month we get inside the mind of ...

Stephen Sondheim’s resonant, melancholy musicals

Some years ago, Colin Matthews – a lifelong Londoner – bought himself a composing retreat on the Somerset/ Dorset borders and half-seriously confessed to fears that the view of cows from his windows ‘

LESTER COHEN / GETTY Lazarus: The Second Coming ...

Leigh Lawson has embraced acting and poetry with the same determination that sustained Marie Lloyd, the music-hall queen whose memorabilia he collects, as Carla Passino discovers

‘Instead of doing drugs or joining a gang, I played piano’ Francois Pierron went from sleeping rough to starring on The Piano after teaching himself how to play and tickling the ivories at St Pancras