Theatre, film & music
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The silver screen, blockbusters and bombs: The curious terminology of films explained
What links the RAF, Jurassic Park and Jaws? More than you might think.
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Unputdownable: 12 page turners to see you through the rest of the winter
From cookbooks to cricket, biographies to Sunday Times bestsellers, Country Life contributors name some of their favourite books from last year.
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14 of the greatest movie posters in cinema
The right poster can evoke a film without words, stir nostalgia and entice viewers into cinemas.
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The Christmas Carol songbook that changed the sound of Christmas
Kate Green takes a look at the musical legacy of Sir David Willcocks through his book Carols for Choirs.
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The First World War, as seen through the unique Country Life Picture Archive
Country Life looks back at the First World War through the lens of the Country Life Archive. View images, read a selection of wartime articles, and also download war artist Muirhead Bone’s first catalogue of drawings, originally published in 1917.
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Henry Wood: The man who made The Proms
As the 2024 Prroms get under way, we take a look at the man who began this great British summer institution: Henry Wood.
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Curious Questions: Was music's famous 'Lady of the Nightingales' nothing more than a hoaxer?
Beatrice Harrison, aka ‘The Lady of the Nightingales’, charmed King and country with her garden duets alongside the nightingales singing in a Surrey garden. One hundred years later, Julian Lloyd Webber examines whether her performances were fact or fiction.
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The 10 most romantic declarations of love in film and literature
Kate Green takes a look at the ten most romantic movie moments and literary declarations of love.
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Indices to Country Life articles
The Country Life Index of articles is all articles published by Country Life, since 1897, in one place.
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What price culture? £380 to see Taylor Swift — or £12 for a night at the Royal Opera
Country Life's cultural crusader Athena takes a look at the thorny issue of live music ticket prices — and how the habits of concert-goers today show that the struggles of classical music and opera to find an audience run far deeper than mere cost.
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Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers turns 30
Not all heroes wear capes, some are more likely to put on the wrong trousers and ask their dog if he wants ‘more cheese’. Harry Pearson meets Wallace and Gromit, two of our best-loved Plasticine characters.
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The BBC Proms are the most ambitious, eclectic and successful classical music festival in the world — and we should celebrate them
The Proms are a great British institution and a remarkable success story, says Country Life's cultural commentator Athena.
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William Shakespeare: The original Nature boy
William Shakespeare wasn’t only the greatest playwright of our history, he was an avid ornithophile, a green man and a master of transposing the true power of Nature onto the page, says John Lewis-Stempel.
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J.R.R. Tolkien: The life and times of the lord of the books
From a sentence born of an exhausting teaching job, J. R. R. Tolkien crafted a series of fantastical novels that, 50 years on from his death, still loom as large in our imagination as Sauron’s all-seeing eye, says Matthew Dennison.
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Curious Questions: What was the first ever vinyl LP?
Music-lovers who replaced their records with CDs three decades ago can still barely believe vinyl's unlikely resurgence — but the fresh interest in this old medium is still going as the first ever vinyl LP turns 75. Martin Fone charts the history of vinyl long-play records.
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Who wrote the Christmas Carols we know and love? 11 songs and their stories, from Silent Night to Good King Wenceslas
Many of our best-loved and most moving Christmas carols started life as poems in search of a tune. Andrew Green uncovers the writers whose works were nearly forgotten, yet are now imprinted on the memory.
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In Focus: The enduring appeal of Andrew Lloyd-Webber's 'The Phantom of the Opera'
Jack Watkins tells the tale of one of the West End's most iconic musicals, and how The Phantom of the Opera evolved from an obscure novel and largely forgotten films to become a global sensation.
