‘Unforgettable’: Marina Poplavskaya, Plácido Domingo and Joseph Calleja in Simon Boccanegra at the Proms. Photograph: Chris Christodoulou The last note of Simon Boccanegra rang out. Verdi’s tragic Doge lay dead on the floor, inches from the lucky front-row Prommers in a packed Royal Albert Hall. Plácido Domingo might be 69 years old but he can [...]

The Jolly Boys: (from left) Joseph ‘Powda’ Bennett, 73; Albert Minott, 72; Derrick ‘Johnny’ Henry, 71; Allan Swymmer, 82, and Egbert Watson, 84. Photograph: William Richards A barbarously sticky afternoon in Jamaica and I’m in Kingston inside a windowless room with a low ceiling and brown carpet on the walls watching five old men. They [...]

Emergency on planet Earth? You need Sherlock Holmes, The A-Team, and a boy who’s practised an awful lot of balancing. Illustration: sophiehenson.com The world is currently in a parlous state. Everywhere you look, things are the worst they’ve ever been: the seas are filled with oil, the skies with volcanic ash. There are wars, there [...]