Interviews
Tim Cumming
As Martin Scorsese’s new feature film, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story, hits Netflix and cinemas, and a new 14 CD boxed set enters the official Bootleg Series, theartsdesk talks exclusively to Scarlet Rivera, the violinist on Desire and the Rolling Thunder Revue tours of 1975 and 1976, about her experiences of encountering, recording and touring with Dylan.I wrote to Scarlet Rivera via her website, expecting only the outside chance of a reply, because few who have worked and spent time with Dylan tend to open up about their experiences in public. I stressed my interest in the Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
Visits from major foreign ballet companies are always news, but a two-week London season by one of America’s “big three” is something to get excited about. San Francisco Ballet doesn’t rest on its laurels. Eight of the 12 pieces offered in the coming Sadler's Wells season were premiered by the company only last year. Helgi Tomasson, its long-serving artistic director, tells theartsdesk what it means to keep pushing the boundaries.JENNY GILBERT: You’ve been at the helm of this company for an astonishing 34 years. That gives you a long view of the art form that’s almost unique.HELGI TOMASSON: Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Martial arts mayhem, Shaolin philosophy, a tribe of masked hip hop warriors emerging from the mist of Staten Island, a Funkadelic-Parliament collective sprawling through the music industry in the age of black mass incarceration: the Wu-Tang Clan were all these things, immediately. Will Ashton’s new book, Chamber Music: About the Wu-Tang (in 36 Pieces), considers their 1993 debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) in provocative, cut-up, sample-heavy style. In conversation with the languidly learned, culturally sensitive journalist Kevin Le Gendre, he sets the Wu-Tang in a broad, often ugly Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Cellist Raphael Wallfisch thinks outside of the box. His concert repertoire spans the popular concerto choices – the Elgar, the Dvořák – but he doesn’t stop there, and makes a point of seeking out the lesser-known and the little-heard. He has a particular taste for English cello concertos of the 20th century, and his advocacy has revived the fortunes of cello works by Bliss, Bax, Moeran, and particularly Gerald Finzi, his performance of the Finzi Cello Concerto a surprise hit of the 2001 Proms.His recording projects are equally adventurous. By the end of this year, Wallfisch will have Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Benedikt Erlingsson (b.1969) was already an established theatre director and actor in Iceland when he directed his debut film, Of Horses And Men, an uncategorisable blend of humour, romance and horror, set away from Reykjavik amongst stubbornly individual, isolated farmers. Its indelible first scene, when a proud horse-breeder parades his prize steed to his neighbours, only for another horny horse to leap a fence for a shag with the mortified owner still on board, making him then shoot his horse in the head, shows Erlingsson’s talent for tackling radical shifts in tone with dry nonchalance. Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Will Gregory (b.1959) is best known as one half of the alt-pop duo Goldfrapp but has a long career in music that dips into many areas. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he was a working musician who toured with multiple bands, notably, Tears for Fears, as well as playing on sessions for albums by artists ranging from The Cure to Portishead. He is a multi-instrumentalist valued for his saxophone and woodwind playing (from Moondog and Michael Nyman to Peter Gabriel and it’s him on Spiritualized’s Lazer Guided Melodies), but as much for his general studio and arrangement abilities.Since 1999 Read more ...
Mark Sheerin
“I think we need to get rid of labels, certainly World Music,” insists Soumik Datta, who is both composer and musician, and has lived in the UK since the age of 11. “It is possible to be a musician in the Indian tradition, as well as an electronic musician, as well as a contemporary musician... When it’s convenient, the music industry warps things to make them fit, but otherwise all the pigeonholing and the taxonomies are really unhelpful to a lot of artists out there.”Datta plays the sarod. This 19-string instrument has a tremendous range and provides enough complex rhythms and glissando Read more ...
Heather Neill
It is 30 years since Shadowlands, William Nicholson's much-loved play about CS Lewis's unexpected love affair with Joy Gresham, an American poet, was first seen on stage. The famous academic and author of the Narnia books, apparently content in his male world of Oxford high tables and intellectual cut-and-thrust, was transformed by his meeting with Joy, a clever, outspoken fan of his theological writing. Their idyll was short-lived; within a few years she succumbed to cancer and Lewis was overwhelmed with grief. Originally written for television and subsequently filmed (with Anthony Hopkins Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Nicôle Lecky’s one woman show Superhoe has added fire to the reputation of an already fast-rising actress and writer. Based around Sasha, a Plaistow girl who aspires to pop stardom, it’s a clear-eyed, very modern play, filled with its central character’s motor-mouthed bravado and examining the Instagram generation’s relationship with sexual objectification. It comes to the Brighton Festival in May.Raised in London, Lecky, 28, is of mixed British-Jamaican descent. Since training at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts she has gone on to appear in TV shows such as Death on Paradise, Fresh Meat Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Bananarama are one of the most successful girl groups of all time. Consisting of Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward, the band’s third original member Siobhan Fahey left in 1988 to form Shakespears Sister. The trio reunited in 2017 for a tour but new album, In Stereo, sees them back as the long-standing duo. The pair have been friends since their school days.Bananarama formed in London in the milieu of post-punk clubland, their opening shot “Aie a Mwana” leading to a major label record deal and backing vocals for Fun Boy Three who were, at the time, one of Britain’s most eagerly anticipated new Read more ...
Owen Richards
When Jason and Tracey were trying for a baby, the worst happened. Tracey was diagnosed with breast cancer, and although she eventually recovered, was unable to carry a child. For Jason, the answer was clear - as a trans man, he would become pregnant instead.The new documentary A Deal with Universe follows Jason and Tracey’s journey as they attempt to conceive. It might sound niche, but in reality, it’s a universal story of love and determination. Like many couples, they struggle with failed IVF treatments and miscarriages; Jason’s gender is almost an afterthought. Told through home Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
I met Agnès Varda, who died today aged 90, just once, for the interview that’s reproduced below. It was in Paris in January 2018, shortly before the Belgian-born filmmaker was to become the oldest Oscar nominee in history, for the wonderful documentary Faces, Places. The encounter felt like a lucky break – blessed exposure to an icon and one of the most grounded and delightful inspirations one could imagine.On paper, the event was of the sort that journalists loathe, a ‘round table’ that, due to Varda’s popularity, grew by the second until there were perhaps 30 interviewers surrounding the Read more ...