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We're doing our first review on TwitterThursday, 15 July 2010As Jonathan Ross is an incorrigible tweeter, theartsdesk has decided to review his last stand on the BBC on Twitter. Adam Sweeting and Jasper Rees will watch Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and tweet a joint review live as the programme goes out. The show... Read more... |
Bragg and Cowell the polar ends of BAFTA TV award winsSunday, 06 June 2010
Melvyn 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 was another winner at the London Palladium, with a special award for an outstanding contribution to entertainment and for furthering new talent in reality talent shows such as The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent. The... Read more... |
Chalk a line around it: Law & Order is deadMonday, 17 May 2010
American television network executives more concerned about remaking old dramas (Rockford Files 2010, anyone?) than maintaining a powerhouse drama which has wowed critics and fans for 20 years have finally killed off Law & Order. |
Lost Films of World War TwoSaturday, 10 April 2010
From Monday 12 April, retro channel History is airing a 10-part series called WWII Lost Films. It will present the story of the Second World War from the viewpoints of 12 Americans involved in the war effort, using a newly restored stash of rare and unseen colour footage. Read more... |
They didn't make them like that then either: Simon Gray back on screenWednesday, 07 April 2010
Every generation is inclined to moan that they don’t make them like they used to. It’s a favourite refrain of television dramatists. It scarcely seems credible now that a theatre animal like Simon Gray could regularly write single plays for television and attract audiences of millions. |
The Bible: A History: The BashThursday, 25 February 2010It could so easily have been just another bit of God-slot box-ticking. But The Bible: A History, in which Channel 4 has invited guest presenters to mull over some aspect of the Good Book, has been exciting a lot of comment from viewers. Summoning Gerry Adams to present a film about the life of Christ won't have done anything to dampen audience... Read more... |
Bafta interviews and reviewsTuesday, 23 February 2010
Read theartsdesk's reviews and interviews for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts award-winners. Read more... |
BBC joins opera talent huntMonday, 25 January 2010
The BBC launched today its own popular opera talent hunt (details below), while ITV's Popstar to Operastar has suffered heavy critical attack and disappointing public ratings. The BBC's Commissioning Editor for Music and Events, Jan Younghusband, added a private comment to... Read more... |
theartsdesk an essential site of 2009: BBC Radio 5 LiveFriday, 01 January 2010
theartsdesk received a New Year's gift last night when we were given a significant accolade from BBC Radio 5 Live. In Web 2009 with Helen and Olly, the station's podcasters and self-styled "internet obsessives" Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann recognised theartsdesk as one of the five "essential sites of 20... Read more... |
Boxing Day Bloat: theartsdesk recommendsSaturday, 26 December 2009
The morning after the day before has dawned. If you're not inclined to join the shopping queues, theartsdesk is happy to suggest alternatives. Our writers recommend all sorts of cultural things you could get up to in the next week. Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
It might be a push to call this documentary a feminist slant on Humphrey Bogart, but it wouldn’t quite be a shove. Northern Irish filmmaker...
The Young Vic has opened under a new...
It’s not often we hear barely a single gunshot in a movie set amid Mexican drug cartels, but that may be the way it is for people who actually...
I don’t really want to talk about this year. Genuinely.
It’s been so horrific on the macro scale with deranged Fascism and the effects of...
Judging by a Sunday Times interview last weekend, Daniel Craig now enjoys wearing brilliantly-coloured sweaters and extraordinary...
I live in Brixton, south London. To get to the tube, I have to cross Windrush Square. Since 2021, I go past the Cherry Groce memorial, which...
What is it about Humphrey Bogart? Why does he still spark interest, still feel relevant, so many decades after his death? It’s a complex question...
I’ve known for some time that Ariel Sharratt & Matthias Kom’s Never Work is my Album of the Year. This lividly witty...
Lauded by Auden, detested by Edmund Wilson, the Tolkien sagas have divided many from childhood onwards: for kids, they’re not quite pulpy...