tv
The Good Wife, Series 3 Finale, More4Friday, 08 June 2012![]()
All good things must come to an end, but at least if it's a fully tooled-up American drama series it comes to an end a lot more slowly. Where the BBC serves up six episodes of Silk or a ridiculous three of Sherlock, the third season of The Good Wife finally drew to a close with its 22nd instalment. Read more... |
All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry, Channel 4Wednesday, 06 June 2012![]()
Taste and class – there’s really no separating them. Read more... |
Revenge, E4Tuesday, 05 June 2012![]()
Just when it seemed that thrillers on British television were supplied solely by Scandinavia's finest, along comes a new US series to remind us that when it comes to densely plotted ensemble pieces the Americans have form too. Revenge, the pilot episode of which aired last week and which started a 21-week run last night, has some promising names attached. Read more... |
The Voice: The Final, BBC OneSunday, 03 June 2012![]()
I love the BBC. “Auntie Beeb” really is the appropriate nickname for the Corporation, at least when it comes to television, because you just know when they try and get involved with any kind of pop culture it's going to be with all the gaucheness of a very enthusiastic auntie trying to adopt kids' tastes. This goes double with Danny Cohen – a man who gives the impression that he starts every sentence with “hey guys” and thinks “mega” is the latest street slang – at the helm of BBC One. Read more... |
Punk Britannia, BBC FourSaturday, 02 June 2012![]()
“We didn’t have a real agenda. We just wanted to play some tunes and have a good time.” Thus spoke the immaculately suited but still mischievous-looking Mick Jones. And thank goodness he said it because, from the off - even before the off - I didn’t think anyone would. The interviewer (his ideological preconceptions crumbling) protested, so unfortunately Jones had to qualify his unguarded statement by saying he couldn’t of course speak for the other members of The Clash. Read more... |
Evidently... John Cooper Clarke, BBC FourThursday, 31 May 2012![]()
“You aren’t going to get another one of them, are you?” asks Alex Turner, rhetorically, with regard to John Cooper Clarke. He should know. The first explosion into the public eye by his band Arctic Monkeys, with their 2006 album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, owed a direct stylistic debt to the Mancunian poet. Read more... |
The South Bank Show, Sky Arts 1 /Sebastian Bergman, BBC FourMonday, 28 May 2012![]()
Lord Bragg permitted himself a knowing chuckle as he introduced Sky Arts's resurrection of The South Bank Show from the South Bank. He was standing in front of the National Theatre, whose director Nicholas Hytner was this week's subject, though within seconds he had been teleported to the streets of Manhattan, to preview the opening of Hytner's production of One Man, Two Guvnors on Broadway. Read more... |
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here, BBC FourSaturday, 26 May 2012![]()
We now know that David Cameron's favourite album is Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, although there is a theory that he only picked it to avoid having to give the true answer, which is The Queen is Dead by The Smiths. Clearly this would have been a tactless selection in Diamond Jubilee year. Read more... |
Delius: Composer, Lover, Enigma, BBC FourSaturday, 26 May 2012![]()
Serious programmes about classical music are now virtually invisible on the major channels. There’s always BBC Two’s Maestro at the Opera, I hear you shout. Or something with that nice Gareth Malone. A good selection of Proms will be shown live on BBC Four, but with luck will scrupulously avoid the witless interviews with celebs in lieu of proper interval talks... Read more... |
House, Series Finale, Sky 1Friday, 25 May 2012![]()
It seems fitting that the final ever episode of a show that has revelled so gleefully in its main character’s willful refusal to change should pivot on the question of whether, finally, he can. This introspective swansong found our misanthropic medic in by far his direst straits yet – no small feat, when you consider that previous finales have seen him get shot, go clinically insane and, most recently, end up in prison. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today

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

MOR. Twee. Unashamedly crowdpleasing. Are such descriptors indicative of a tedious night in the stalls? For your reviewer, who has...

For the first half-hour of this show – on the day before the release of his new album Alan Sparhawk With Trampled by Turtles – Alan...

Michael Gira (born 19/2/54) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, author and artist. He founded Swans, a band in which he sings and plays...

A couple of months ago, I wrote here that Lady Gaga was the godmother of the new generation of ostentatiously “theatre kid” pop stars – but...

As this two-part documentary vividly illustrates, it...

Garbage’s eighth album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, arrives with weighty intentions and a strong sense of purpose, but the end...

“I can’t move my arms or legs but apart from that I’m good to go.” Moth (Jason Isaacs) has to be pulled out of the tent in his sleeping bag by his...

Thankfully, Julia Burbach’s version of The Flying Dutchman for Opera Holland Park doesn’t try to be one of those concept-laden...

As a regular theatregoer, you learn pretty quickly that there’s no story too bizarre to work as a...