Is it time to turn the British Museum into the world’s great lending library?
Tim Adams
With a new government will come grown-up conversations about our colonial history’s part in the acquiring of artefacts
March 2024
Garrick Club asked to consider membership for seven leading women
A group of men at the club who hope the male-only rule will change have nominated a set of possible new members
November 2023
Was Roman emperor Elagabalus really trans – and does it really matter?
Teenage ruler has become genderqueer icon but historians including Mary Beard advise caution over ‘tall stories’
October 2023
Book of the day
Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard review – imperial exploits
An enthralling analysis of the wild stories that circulated about Rome’s ruthless rulers
September 2023
Books interview
Mary Beard: ‘The last thing I’d want is a world in which we all agreed’
The classicist on autocrats ancient and modern, free speech in universities and whether Twitter has been a force for good
March 2023
Lunch with...
Mary Beard: ‘Everyone is policing everything, and the left are just as bad as the right’
The classicist on life on the culture wars’ frontline, what she owes her mother – and how pizza shaped her TV career
February 2023
‘Big books by blokes about battles’: why we need the Women’s prize for nonfiction
Authors and publishers discuss the gender imbalance in nonfiction writing, and ask whether the newly announced award can redress it
September 2022
Joyce Reynolds obituary
Classicist and academic who transformed our understanding of Roman imperial history
March 2022
TV tonight
TV tonight: Grantchester is back with another whodunnit to solve
Tom Brittney and Robson Green return as Will and Geordie, and are at loggerheads with the latter’s new boss. Plus: Mary Beard goes inside culture. Here’s what to watch this evening
February 2022
TV tonight
TV tonight: glass-ceiling smashers pull anti-female prejudice apart
Observer TV reviews
The week in TV: Pam & Tommy; Mary Beard’s Forbidden Art; Station Eleven; Race & Medical Experiments: What’s the Truth?
December 2021
Top 10s
Top 10 books about the Roman empire
From Edward Gibbon to Asterix the Gaul, the astonishing endurance of the largest state Europe has ever known continues to inspire a compelling literature
September 2021
Mary Beard: ‘If we want to understand what we went through in the pandemic, we need the arts’
The classicist on owning her TV image, dealing with internet trolls, and why her new book on Roman emperors sheds light on our preoccupation with statues
July 2021
Latin to be introduced at 40 state secondaries in England
£4m scheme will form part of government effort to counter subject’s reputation as elitist
June 2021
TV tonight
TV tonight: behind the scenes at Glastonbury in the 1990s
BBC Two travels back in time to a scorching decade of Glastonbury festivals. Plus: Gregg Wallace dons the lederhosen to tuck in to schnitzel and beer. Here’s what to watch this evening
May 2021
TV tonight
TV tonight: celebrate a decade of Robert Popper’s sitcom Friday Night Dinner
Mary Beard to fund classics students from under-represented groups
February 2021
Rod Ponton is not a cat, but he gave us plenty of lockdown joy
Rebecca Nicholson
'Witch' tweets reflect society's fear of older women, says Mary Beard
May 2020
Lockdown culture
Martin Scorsese in lockdown: an auteur's eye view of house arrest
The 77-year-old director’s thoughtful movie dispatch from his New York study for Mary Beard’s TV culture show is an affecting treat, and an honest reflection on ageing
