thu 12/12/2024

tv

Arena: Night and Day, BBC Four

Marina Vaizey

Arena is the longest-running arts documentary programme for television at the BBC, and perhaps the world: as the BBC itself phrases it, this compendium celebration presented 24 hours in 90 minutes for 40 years, marking the show's latest anniversary. Conceived by the ever-creative and energetic Humphrey Burton all that while ago, Arena has made over 600 films, looking at high and low culture with equal curiosity, alacrity and even audacity.

Read more...

Prom 2: The Doctor Who Prom in Pictures

theartsdesk

There's the First Night and there's the Last Night. Nowadays among the staples of the two-month world-famous festival of music at the Royal Albert Hall, there is also the Doctor Who Prom. Last night, to mark the 50th anniversary of the resurgent TV sci-fi show, a celebration was laid on featuring Murray Gold's music from the last eight years of Doctor Who.

Read more...

TV Gallery: Frozen Planet

Jasper Rees

What we're used to seeing whenever the BBC launches on one of its epic explorations of the natural world is moving pictures. But as well as training film cameras at their subects, from the largest mountains and glaciers to the smallest organisms, the hardy modern-day adventurers armed with their phenomenal hi-tech kit also train still cameras at everything they encounter.

Read more...

TV Gallery: Downton Abbey

theartsdesk

  1. Maggie Smith Violet, Dowager Countress of Grantham
  2. Hugh Bonneville Robert, Earl of Grantham
  3. Penelope Wilton Mrs Isobel Crawley
  4. Dan Stevens Matthew Crawley
  5. Michelle Dockery Lady Mary Crawley
  6. Theo James Kemal Pamuk
  7. Jim Carter Mr Carson
  8. Brendan Coyle Mr Bates
  9. Rob James-Collier Thomas
  10. Thomas Howes William
  11. Joanne...

    Read more...

TV Gallery: Cranford's Bonnets

Jasper Rees

It's sometimes referred to, just a bit dismissively, as bonnet drama. Whenever television visits the 19th century, the headwear of the female characters does indeed play its part. Of no adaptation of Victorian fiction is that truer than Cranford. The actresses wearing the bonnets are fairly resplendent too.

Read more...
 

latest in today

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

The Devil Wears Prada, Dominion Theatre review - efficient b...

It's second time only quasi-lucky for The Devil Wears Prada, the stage musical adaptation of the much-loved Meryl Streep film from 2006...

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review - a mi...
Lauded by Auden, detested by Edmund Wilson, the Tolkien sagas have divided many from childhood onwards: for kids, they’re not quite pulpy enough...
Jesus & Mary Chain, O2 Institute, Birmingham - Reid Brot...

The Jesus and Mary Chain may have been around for some 40 years (albeit on and off), but the Reid brothers clearly have no intention of setting up...

Album: Ajukaja & Mart Avi - Death of Music

Death of Music was created in Estonia. Despite the English lyrics, directness is absent. Take the title track. “Drop the music” exhorts...

The Producers, Menier Chocolate Factory review - liberating...

There is something deliciously perfect about the timing of The Producers’ arrival at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In these...

La rondine, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - sumptuous orches...

There are no battlement leaps or murderous vows, no pistols or daggers, not so much as a slight cough disturbs the serene plot of La rondine...

A Midsummer Night's Dream, RSC, Barbican review - visua...

Hermia is a headbutting punk with a tartan fetish, Oberon looks like Adam Ant and Lysander appears to have stumbled out of a Madness video. Yet...

L’étoile, RNCM, Manchester review - lavish and cheerful absu...

Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’étoile is not exactly a French farce, but it comes from a post-Offenbach era (1877 saw its premiere) when cheerful...

Album: Ben Folds - Sleigher

The Christmas album is an American phenomenon that doesn’t...