2015
The Great Escaper review - Glenda Jackson takes her final bowFriday, 06 October 2023
This wasn’t a film to go and see with my 94-year-old father and hope I’d come out with my critical faculties intact and my handkerchief dry. The Great Escaper is an old fashioned, old school weepie about ageing, guilt and the horrors of... Read more... |
Paris Memories review - recalling the terror, bit by bitWednesday, 02 August 2023
People have been making films about the unreliability of memory since, oh, I can’t remember. Often it’s a cue for a genre escapade, but here French filmmaker Alice Winocour gives us a social drama, telling the fictional story of a survivor of the... Read more... |
Under the ShadowFriday, 30 September 2016
We haven’t been here before. Tehran in 1980, bombed by its Iraqi invaders and jumpy with revolutionary fervour, is a place preoccupied with ordinary fear. Showing the normal if pressurised life he remembers from childhood in this demonised country... Read more... |
First Night of the Proms, BBCSO, Oramo, Gabetta, BorodinaSaturday, 16 July 2016
The first notes of the first night of the Proms weren’t the ones expected. Instead of either “God Save the Queen” or simply the start of the Tchaikovsky, the “Marseillaise” rang out into the Royal Albert Hall, the Tricouleur projected in coloured... Read more... |
Tony Allen and Jimi Tenor, Café OTOSaturday, 23 January 2016
Questions of what is authentic and what is retro get more complicated the more the information economy matures. Music from decades past that only tens or hundreds of people heard at the time it was made becomes readily available, gets sampled by new... Read more... |
Albums of 2015: John Grant - Grey Tickles, Black PressureFriday, 01 January 2016
When was the last time a singer really spoke to your inner thoughts? Not the sanitised version you offer up on Facebook, nor even your occasional breakdown, but the everyday stuff – the indignation, cynicism and justifiable anger you carry... Read more... |
Best of 2015: Dance & BalletThursday, 31 December 2015
It was business as usual in the British dance world in 2015. Looking back over the year, theartsdesk's dance critics see the industry's many talented, capable people continuing to do their jobs well, but we don't recall being shaken, stirred or... Read more... |
Best (and Worst) of 2015: TelevisionThursday, 31 December 2015
It's hard to disagree with Matthew Wright, in his brisk analysis of the shortcomings of British crime drama (see below). He notes how flashes of inspiration are smothered by skimpy budgets and the timidity of commissioning editors. The disastrous... Read more... |
Albums of 2015: Jewel - Picking Up the PiecesThursday, 31 December 2015
Music can be passed down through generations like family heirlooms, precious and forever.For me, I was gifted Johnny Cash, Perry Como, Burt Bacharach, Joni Mitchell, Elton John. Songs that have resonated with me throughout my whole life, seeing me... Read more... |
Best of 2015: OperaWednesday, 30 December 2015
How ironic that English National Opera turned out possibly the two best productions of the year after the Arts Council had done its grant-cutting worst, punishing the company simply, it seemed, for not being the irrationally preferred Royal Opera.... Read more... |
theartsfest 2015 - SundayWednesday, 30 December 2015
So, the first day's done. We awake, bleary-eyed and emerge from our tents and survey the scene. No matter how bad it looks for our immediate future health, the clouds are sure to clear before the inaugural beer and opening bands. The quality... Read more... |
Albums of 2015: Julia Holter - Have You in My WildernessWednesday, 30 December 2015
For some musicians operating on the leftfield, achieving accessibility or commercial success means compromising their unique vision. Not so with Los Angeles singer-songwriter-producer Julia Holter. Her first three albums – four, if you include 2009'... Read more... |
- 1 of 3
- ››
