interviews
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician MobySaturday, 14 May 2011
Moby (b 1965) has been a presence on the dance scene and in global clubland for two decades. He is best known for the multimillion-selling 1999 album Play which, among other things, combined lush electronic orchestration with old field recordings of... Read more... |
Q&A Special: Musician Mary GauthierTuesday, 03 May 2011
The Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury preserves the story of the Foundling Hospital, established in 1739 by Thomas Coram, the artist Hogarth and the composer Handel. At the end of April, American country singer Mary Gauthier performed The Foundling, a... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Christopher EcclestonSaturday, 30 April 2011
Christopher Eccleston’s performances have a raw-boned, visceral quality which makes him a sometimes unsettling - but always compelling - actor to watch. Since his big break in the harrowing Let Him Have It (1991), playing Derek Bentley who at 19 was... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Electronic Musicians Hype WilliamsSaturday, 16 April 2011
The music of Hype Williams is the definition of an acquired taste. It sounds ramshackle, thrown together, deliberately awkward – either deeply contrarian or the work of very, very messed-up people just playing around with archaic home recording... Read more... |
Interview: The UnthanksThursday, 10 March 2011
Misery may be folk music’s stock-in-trade but no one does it quite like the British. Maybe it’s part of our heritage. We are a nation, after all, that has not only invented a drink called bitter but have a brand called Doom Bar. And within the UK,... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Script Supervisor Angela AllenSaturday, 05 March 2011
The credits unfold against a backdrop of a tall, exotic plant, down whose length the camera slowly pans. The African Queen, in glorious Technicolor, based on a novel by CS Forrester, directed by John Huston, shot by Jack Cardiff, starring two of... Read more... |
Interview: Violinist Daniel HopeWednesday, 02 March 2011
In the later 19th century, violinist and composer Joseph Joachim was hailed as the most brilliant fiddler of his day, but today his name lives on via the great works that he helped to bring into the classical repertoire. Brahms dedicated his... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Colin FirthSaturday, 19 February 2011
In some ways it’s been an odd career. Everyone else in Another Country (1982), the stage play by Julian Mitchell about gays and Marxists in a 1930s English public school, shot out of the blocks. Colin Firth was the only actor to play both lead parts... Read more... |
Q&A: Playwright Nick Dear on Adapting FrankensteinThursday, 10 February 2011
It is one of the most hotly anticipated new productions at the National Theatre in years, for which all but day seats have long since been sold out. Danny Boyle has been lured back to the stage to direct a version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Director Robert LepageSaturday, 29 January 2011
Robert Lepage is not just one of the most fêted and sought-after theatre directors in the world; he is also one of the most prolific. His international breakthrough came with The Dragon Trilogy in 1985, and since then the French-Canadian’s work has... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Author Michael DibdinSunday, 02 January 2011
“There is a sense I very much get about this place. Italians know what life is for and they know it won’t last very long. And so they take advantage. I like that. Particularly at my age.” The last of several times I interviewed the British crime... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Actress Eileen AtkinsFriday, 24 December 2010
Eileen Atkins (b 1934) acquired long-overdue fame with her performance in the BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford. Her desiccated spinster was the indisputed star turn until death did us part. It’s taken a while. Aside from half a century... Read more... |
