This new dance production is a must-see – Malevo, Sadler’s Wells

Country & Town House | 31 Oct 2023

Picture an extravaganza that recalls hints of the showmanship of the 1970s Village People mixed with a sprinkling of flamenco and a huge helping of reimagined Argentine folkloric dance. Then add some very talented bad-ass men in low-cut necks, black and leather with puffed chests stomping, strutting and thundering their energetic and talented feet to the pounding and pulsating of booming, thudding drums plus guitars and violins live on stage. And what do you get? The South American dance sensation Malevo.

• Culture

Aesthetic Treatments Our Testers Loved

Country & Town House | 18 Sep 2023

These 10 non-surgical aesthetic treatments – some new, some faithful – have been put to the test by our scrupulous beauty experts. Read on for our honest reviews, and to see which treatments came out on top.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

How To Create A Cost-Effective DIY Spa Experience At Home

Country & Town House | 31 May 2023

Getting the spa experience – while saving money – is what everyone needs to promote sleep, emotional and physical health. The first step? Taking the spa experience home with some DIY treatment. We’ve rounded up our favourite picks and products that will allow you to splash out on one or two luxuries, while still leaving plenty of cash in your wallet. And the big benefit? You’ll have loads of product left over for your next at-home spa day, making it even more cost effective.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Edinburgh in 48 Hours – The Weekender

Country & Town House | 27 Mar 2023

Edinburgh: that wondrous place on the shore of the Firth of Forth that’s dominated by its 11th-century castle on a rocky ridge; the capital of Scotland; somewhere with JK Rowling spots aplenty. Heading to the Fringe this summer? Luckily for you, Edinburgh isn’t just host to theatre and comedy’s rising stars, but a stellar destination in its own right. It is a location with top food, excellent shopping and historic sites across the town centre, not to mention those wonderful Scots themselves, with their dry humour, haggis and sporrans. It is, of course, always bathed in sunlight because that’s what the weather’s permanently like in Edinburgh – not. Just prepare yourself for four seasons in one day.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

It’s cool to be woo

Country & Town House | 25 Jan 2023

Spirituality and formerly arcane practices have gone mainstream, with CEOs, lawyers and HNWs seeking help from tarot readers to people ‘in spirit’ to make those big decisions. Yes, hedgies to bankers – and at least one newspaper proprietor – have become ‘seekers’.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

How to create the ultimate Ayurvedic retreat in London

Country & Town House | 17 Jan 2023

Holistic in nature and based on the concept of interconnectedness, Ayurvedic treatments aim to balance the mind, body (and spirit) with diets, herbal remedies, massage therapies, yoga and meditation.

There are multiple benefits to running your own Ayurvedic retreat, including keeping things local and spending a fraction of the usual price of an international retreat. You’ll also help the environment – by jettisoning long plane trips – and avoid pesky airport queues and jet lag. Plus, staying home allows you to do an Ayurvedic break that’s so mini you won’t return to work (or home) and find yourself so overloaded that you wish you’d never left.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

Incomparable Art & Interiors: Delaire Graff Estate, South Africa

Country & Town House | 26 Dec 2022

African aesthetics are having a moment – from the spectacular William Kentridge exhibition at the Royal Academy to the V&A’s blockbuster Africa Fashion. And there’s no better place to experience African art in all its forms (from sculpture to scent and gemstones) than at the Delaire Graff Estate. Set in a glorious 106-acre estate bursting with vineyards near Stellenbosch, it’s the hotel of Laurence Graff, jeweller, diamantaire, billionaire businessman and art collector. You can even rent his art-filled private house, the Owner’s Villa, if your pockets are deep.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

Natural or not – The Scoop

Country & Town House | 4 Nov 2022

Natural or not, the choice is yours, says Caroline Phillips

• Health, Beauty & Spa

All The Home Services You Could Ever Need

Country & Town House | 18 Oct 2022

From the tip-top family business whose people digitise your photo albums professionally chez vous, through to the whizz who turns your home office paperless, and the must-have illustration of your house. From the leading Look Doctor to edit your wardrobe and style you in the privacy of your own bedroom (clue, she’s a fashion icon), to someone (used by folk in Kensington Palace) to collect your leatherwork and refurbish it. While you’re trying all the recommendations, grab the app offering a recently-launched service delivering Fortnum & Mason’s artisan foods and drinks to your home within minutes. And let the latest and best robots (reviewed below) clean your home while you’re enjoying all of these home services. You need never leave your house again. But this time you won’t feel as if you’re in lockdown.

• Homes, Interiors & Property

Going Off-Grid In Scotland: Lovely Destinations to Visit

Country & Town House | 12 Oct 2022

Here’s a guide to six of the best off-the-beaten track places to stay in Scotland, from a secret historical hideaway in Edinburgh to a private Highlands estate where you can stalk and pan for gold, to a stylish, off-grid property on a remote island. Most of these discoveries are so off-grid, they have never been written about before.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

Review: Jews. In Their Own Words, at the Royal Court Theatre

Country & Town House | 10 Oct 2022

Jews make up less than one per cent of the UK population. Yet a quarter of all hate crimes in the country are antisemitic. In the week that the Jewish Chronicle reported on this harrowing statistic, I went to the Royal Court to see journalist Jonathan Freedland’s ‘Jews. In their Own Words,’(JITOW). I have a Church of  England mother but grew up with antisemitism: the curious sort from my Jewish father (the son of observant parents) who directed it against his own kind — arguably a manifestation in part of self-hatred and a perverse desire for assimilation. (‘Jews can be the worst antisemites,’ a Jewish friend explained.)

• Culture

Review: The Crucible, National Theatre

Country & Town House | 7 Oct 2022

When girls started yelping and convulsing and then went limp or rigid, witchcraft was diagnosed. This was Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The Crucible —which was first staged in New York in 1953 —was, as is well known, Arthur Miller’s partly-fictionalised story of the Salem witch trials: a quasi-allegorical play based on the story of the pre-adolescents’ denunciations that gripped Salem and which saw hundreds of townsfolk accused of witchcraft and sent to their deaths. The play was Miller’s response to the paranoia and hysteria of post-war US politics, when Communists and suspected Commies were treated as devils in need of exorcism by senator Joe McCarthy and his like; something Miller witnessed personally.

• Culture