Soap dish Samurai

Somewhere up there, reclining on a celestial tobacco cloud, Bill Hicks must cast a rueful eye towards the one-man stand-up multi-gym that is Henry Rollins. The greatest American comic of his generation and a frustrated rock 'n' roller, Hicks died nearly six years ago aged 32. Rollins is 38 and dauntingly alive, dividing his precious time between the hardcore existentialism of his eponymously named Band and these spoken-word hurricanes of mirth.

Melodic seduction

Lyricism, the singing line, has always the vital spark in Hans Werner Henze's music, however much it has shifted its direction and changed its emphasis over half a century of composition, and his work list includes a number of scores especially written for great singers of successive generations. Ian Bostridge is the latest to acquire a bespoke Henze cycle; the 50-minute Six Songs from the Arabian, which Bostridge and the pianist Julius Drake introduced to Britain at the Wigmore Hall on Friday.

Greek unorthodox

Radio Those whom the Gods seek to destroy, they first encourage to write a play in the Greek idiom. At least so it seems, for there are few who can retell Greek myth without resorting to either bombast or anachronism. But in her fine reworking of Sophocles's Women of Trachis, Timberlake Wertenbaker mostly avoids both.

Loose connections

Reviews Pop An avant garde American jazzman is rolling out a lumbering dub bass. A Japanese beatnik James Bond is playing intermittent, Les Dawson-like chords of brilliantly discordant melody. A mustachioed Indian singer in a gold outfit is singing like a Bollywood star while a drummer beats out breathtaking drum 'n' bass rhythms. Members of the audience leap to their feet to punch the air in approval.

Confined to camp

As a filmmaker, Derek Jarman was an excellent gardener, as Philip Hensher discovers from Tony Peake's new biography of the man who loved to shock.

The great Mao mystery

China's dictator was never wrong. Millions died, says Nigel Harris, to prove the point.