The Lir

Articles By The Lir

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

It followed some...

Whether it is or isn’t the final Mission: Impossible film, there’s a distinct fin-de-siècle feel about this eighth instalment, and not...

In the guided tour of Britain’s cathedral cities that is the primetime TV...

Pixies might just be the ultimate Radio 6 Dad band. They’ve been around (on-and-off) for around 40 years; they’ve got a fine back catalogue of...

How do you solve a problem like Sports Team? Taking them at face value, they’re a living metaphor for the slow music biz relegation of the working...

With French baroque opera all but banished from the UK’s major...

Stereolab always walked a knife edge between deadly serious and dead silly. Their sound was constructed around the sort of reference points –...

The plays of David Ireland have a tendency to build to an explosion, after long stretches of caustic dialogue and very funny banter....

Every now and then a concert programme comes along that fits like a bespoke suit, and this one could have been specially designed for me. Two...

Nick Mohammed invented his Mr Swallow character – camp, lisping, with an inflated ego and the mistaken belief that he has creative...