Buzz
Bragg and Cowell the polar ends of BAFTA TV award winsSunday, 06 June 2010Melvyn Bragg last night won this year’s Bafta TV fellowship for his long championing of ITV’s arts with the now mothballed flagship The South Bank Show, which itself has been nominated for more than 30 Baftas and won nine. Ironically Simon Cowell... Read more... |
Madame Armfeldt pronouncesFriday, 04 June 2010
Angela Lansbury is the wittiest, least self-regarding and most articulate octogenarian actress I've ever come across. That much seems clear from her half-hour interview with Mark Coles on the estimable, if sometimes rather narrow-agenda-ed BBC World... Read more... |
The Tom Paine effect: Billy Budd in LewesTuesday, 01 June 2010
When Billy Budd, too-innocent hero of Britten's opera by way of Melville's trouble-at-sea novella, bids farewell to the Rights o'Man, his superior officers prick up their ears at the implications of mutiny. It's a ship he hymns, but the connection... Read more... |
EIFF LaunchTuesday, 01 June 2010
I’m just back – goodie bag gripped greedily in paw – from this morning’s launch of the 64th Edinburgh International Film Festival, which runs in the Scottish capital from 16-27 June. Since breaking away from the over-crowded August festival calendar... Read more... |
Reopening of historic church art spaceThursday, 27 May 2010
Artist Richard Wilson says it's the best space in which he’s ever exhibited. And having ensured its long term future with a £870,000 renovation, Dilston Grove will undoubtedly prove a rewarding site for other contemporary artists to realise their... Read more... |
The Klaxons are backTuesday, 25 May 2010
The arrival on the scene of The Klaxons a few years back gave indie, pop and rock a much-needed kick in the pants. Sure, they were a band born of self-consciously over-trendy east London, causing the NME to froth about "nu rave" for ten minutes, but... Read more... |
Tom Waits to edit Mojo?Sunday, 23 May 2010
In what sounds like a hoax, but sources claim is really true, it seems that Tom Waits will be editing the 200th edition of that magazine for old rockers Mojo. While we don't usually publish Press Releases, we will make an exception. You can judge... Read more... |
Thai Film Takes the Top Prize in CannesSunday, 23 May 2010
At last, some good news for this beleaguered country: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, by the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, took the Palme D'Or in Cannes tonight. Hailed as one of the most striking and unusual films in... Read more... |
Victory on the Fourth PlinthFriday, 21 May 2010
From his tall column in Trafalgar Square, Admiral Lord Nelson won’t be able to glimpse the new work on the Fourth Plinth, since he faces the other way. But of all the works that have occupied this space – from Marc Quinn’s Alison Lapper Pregnant, to... Read more... |
Headline acts announced for 2010 London Jazz FestivalThursday, 20 May 2010
An unprecedented second consecutive year for saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins, celebrating his 80th birthday, is one of the many highlights of the 2010 London Jazz Festival announced yesterday. One question immediately springs to mind: which Noël... Read more... |
Fashion pop ups in unlikely placesThursday, 20 May 2010
While wandering back from a meeting with a hedgie on Haymarket, I noticed a banner emblazoned with the logo of Browns, clothes shop to the well heeled (to mix metaphors), above the entrance to what appeared to be a building site. It was indeed a... Read more... |
Opera down the phoneThursday, 20 May 2010
It's amazing to think that Marcel Proust first heard Wagner's four-and-a-half-hour opera Die Meistersinger down his telephone. That same day, in 1911, he also ingested three hours of Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande. We learn all this from Edward... Read more... |
