sun 24/11/2024

Buzz

theartsdesk Olympics: Let The Games Begin

Even in this year of years, it has to be accepted that not everyone has a soft spot for sport. Anyone answering to that description may well attempt to sprint, jump or pedal away from the coming onslaught, but if you are anywhere near a television,...

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Razzle Dazzle Fizzle: Chicago to Close

Producers did warn it was going to be a bad summer for West End theatre, but the announcement of the closure of Chicago is still a curveball. For 15 years the musical - those credits one more time: music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, a book...

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Thinking of Something Funny: Eric Sykes, 1923-2012

“One never consciously observes. The only people who consciously observe are policemen and undercover agents.” Eric Sykes, who has died at the age of 89, was the last of the great vaudevilleans. When I met him in the late 1990s, he was already...

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Diana The Movie: From the Bunker to Buck House

Shooting is underway on Diana the movie and, as the producers did with Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, a snap of the star in full fig and wig has been launched upon the world. Naomi Watts, whose previous love interests have included Laura Harring in...

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Alternative National Anthems

With Euro 2012 about to end and the Olympics looming, we'll be hearing an awful lot of national anthems over the next couple of months. Don't we all agree that the majority of them are inadequate - often being turgid tunes with no reference to the...

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Welsh Week: Dinefwr, Adain Avion, Llangollen, BrynFest

This Friday afternoon at five o’clock, the National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke will recite a new poem and initiate a seismic week of Welsh cultural exploration. The inaugural Dinefwr Literary Festival will bring writers and musicians from Wales...

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RIP dance critic John Percival

John Percival, one of the heavyweight group of dance critics of the past 60 years, died last Wednesday, aged 85. He had watched and reported on ballet and dance from their infancy in the Forties right up to recent years, offering a powerful...

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Four Brits among 20 shortlisted for conducting competition

Twenty young conductors have been shortlisted to compete in the Donatella Flick/London Symphony Orchestra Conducting Competition in late September. The top prize is a cash award of £15,000 and an attachment to the LSO as Assistant Conductor.The 20...

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Arise, Sir Kenneth Branagh and Dame Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid, visionary architect of the London Olympics Aquatic Centre, becomes a Dame and three new knights of the arts are created in the Queen's Jubilee Birthday Honours announced this morning. Actor Kenneth Branagh, long touted as Sir Laurence...

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Tony Awards 2012: One Guvnor, two Disneys, Once scores eight

James Corden (One Man, Two Guvnors) made it past the finish line, Tracie Bennett (End of the Rainbow) did not, and the art-house musical Once trumped Disney’s latest Broadway entry, Newsies, at the 66th annual Tony Awards in New York last night. The...

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Any actual sporting art on show?

There’s a lot of art currently happening under the wing of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. The common denominator, if there is one, is showstopping ambition and the concept of the inclusive spectacle. What there isn’t much of, whisper it softly,...

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BAFTA Television Awards 2012

It wouldn't have been theartsdesk's pick of the pops, but ITV1's Fred West drama Appropriate Adult had a great night at the BAFTA Television Awards. Dominic West took Leading Actor, Emily Watson was Leading Actress, and Monica Dolan completed the...

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