Features
Year Out/Year In: Theatre Raises the Bar, From Old to NewSunday, 02 January 2011
One expects Shakespeare to be rediscovered afresh on the British stage (if not here, where?), and it was gratifying during 2010 to find the Royal Court - a venue all about the new - raising the authorial bar ever higher via an (almost) unbroken... Read more... |
Year Out/Year In: Classical Music and OperaFriday, 31 December 2010
Earlier this month, George Osborne, Vince Cable and Jeremy Hunt were spotted in a Royal Opera House box surveying the country's most expensive artistic patrimony. What they thought - and how they and the Arts Council might wield their axe - will... Read more... |
Year Out/Year In: New Music To Look ForTuesday, 28 December 2010
In the next instalment of our Year Out/Year In series, theartsdesk's New Music writers cast a critical eye over 2010, and offer some recommendations for 2011, incorporating some very funky videos. Our selection of recommended albums from the past... Read more... |
The Magic Band on The Real Captain BeefheartTuesday, 28 December 2010
Captain Beefheart, who with his Magic Band made John Peel’s favourite album, 1969’s extraordinary Trout Mask Replica, died of complications from multiple sclerosis last week, aged 69. In tribute, below is a feature from 2003, much of it unpublished... Read more... |
2010: A Film OdysseyMonday, 27 December 2010
2010 will go down as the year I fell out of love with Johnny Depp. And not just because of his cringe-making Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, an over-produced farrago which reduced Lewis Carroll's dark Victorian whimsy to a dull computer gamelike... Read more... |
theartsdesk Christmas MessageFriday, 24 December 2010
Once upon a time in the central West Bank, a child called Jesus was allegedly born to a virgin. Once upon an even earlier time, the Greek demigod Perseus was also allegedly born to a virgin, likewise the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli. You can... Read more... |
Bah Humbug: Richard Wagner - banish him from the stageWednesday, 22 December 2010
Now that The X Factor's finally over, can we please get back to heaping opprobrium on the only Wagner that really deserves it? In the coming year opera houses around the world will be deciding whether to temporarily bankrupt themselves in 2013 to... Read more... |
Unexpected Party StartersWednesday, 22 December 2010
Over the last 25 years I've done a lot of DJing, or at least playing records in public that, occasionally, people have been refreshed enough to dance to. I've done sets in all manner of scenarios, from nightclubs to house parties, to gallery... Read more... |
The 10 Best Christmas MoviesTuesday, 21 December 2010
A nostalgified panacea of pine, tinsel, and tintinnabulation? Or a black hole of loneliness, bitterness and melancholy? Films about Christmas, wholly or partially, have straddled both polarities over the years, producing a surprising number of... Read more... |
Captain Beefheart, 1941-2010Monday, 20 December 2010
"The way I keep in touch with the world… is very gingerly… because the world touches too hard." That honest and hugely poignant statement by the musician, composer, songwriter, painter and full-on eccentric Captain Beefheart comes from a documentary... Read more... |
Bah Humbug: Judi Dench - the greatest stage actor ever?Monday, 20 December 2010
Seems we’re living through a silly season. There are rumours afoot that our PM’s Big Society is nothing other than a fig leaf for a chaos theory of how to run society, ie let the devil take the hindmost. And in the arts we’ve got theatre’s esteemed... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Rennes: 32nd Trans Musicales FestivalSunday, 19 December 2010
The Breton capital Rennes is an attractive city. Move north from the train station, pass through a covered market with tripe and saucisse sellers, cross a canal and there's a series of Italianate squares and arcades. Further along is the quaint... Read more... |
