Steven Osborne
Articles By Steven Osborne
latest in today
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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...
![Tight-knit ensemble: Anjli Mohindra, Deborah Findlay, Gina McKee, Romola Garai, Harmony Rose-Bremner in 'The Years'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Years%201.jpg?itok=Tc5XqxSD)
Annie Ernaux’s semi-autobiographical book Les Années charts a woman’s life across time and space, history and memory, through...
For all its passing British sea shanties and folksongs, Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony does Walt Whitman’s determinedly global-oriented...
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is now an Oscar-nominated refugee, in a bittersweet harvest for his film The Seed of the Sacred Fig....
![Bringing unhinged joy](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/NINA_CONTI_LIVE-07236%28Credit_Paul%20Gilbey%29.jpg?itok=G1I9o9NW)
“I really am the repository for all your shit,” Nina Conti’s famous Monkey hand puppet tells her. Monkey may have a point.
The brilliance of...
![Folk and furious: Braimah Kanneh-Mason, Plínio Fernandes, Hadewych van Gent](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/noisenight198%20braimah_plinio_hadewych-3%20%281%29.jpg?itok=0h5c1mgB)
It was the sonically adventurous, shiveringly atmospheric cello piece by Latvian composer Preteris Vasks that proved to be the first showstopper...
![Deus ex machina: Dionysus (Tommy Franzén) takes pity on grieving Ariadne (Kristen McNally) in Minotaur](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Tommy%20Franze%CC%81n%20%28Dionysus%29%20and%20Kristen%20McNally%20%28Ariadne%29%20in%20Minotaur%20%C2%A92025%20Tristram%20Kenton%20%281%29.jpg?itok=GHMuDnZY)
Greek myths are all over theatre stages at the moment, their fierce, vengeful stories offering unnerving parallels with events in our modern world...
![Cyndi Lauper was as colourful as ever on the first night of her European tour](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Rebecca_Miller_Photo_Credit%201.jpg?itok=dRjt79yL)
Cyndi Lauper was preceded onstage by a brief video that zipped through her career, which she drily declared was just in case someone was at the...
![The Lurkers in 1978. Left to right: Pete “Manic Esso” Haynes, Nigel Moore, Pete Stride and Howard Wall.](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/The%20Lurkers_header_1000.jpg?itok=SVrHqgvo)
On its own, the second session The Lurkers recorded for the BBC’s John Peel show on 18 April 1978 is arguably a curio, a footnote. Four tracks of...
![Making faces: Junyan Chen, Sarah Brandwood-Spencer, Ruth Gibson, Eva Thorarinsdottir and Nick Trygstad in Hidden Mechanisms by Héloïse Werner](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Manchester%20Collective%20%28Eva%20Thorarinsdottir%20Violin%2C%20Sarah%20Brandwood-Spencer%20Violin%2C%20Ruth%20Gibson%20Viola%2C%20Nick%20Trygstad%20Cello%2C%20Junyan%20Chen%29%20in%20Hidden%20Mechanisms%20by%20He%CC%81loi%CC%88se%20Werner%20%20Sozosei%20Photography.jpg?itok=gkXMzLSu)
When a piece of music is heard for the first time ever, there’s always the delicious hope that, just by being there, an audience might witness...