I laughed quite a bit going round the exhibition to which the Barbican’s latest theatre events are tied, The Bride and the Bachelors. Pioneer Marcel Duchamp’s 1921 “Readymade” Why No…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:00AMIt's odd that Jerry Herman merits only a passing mention in Stephen Sondheim's two-volume autobiographical take on Broadway words and music, Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat. In a co…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:30AMHot on the heels of the latest English uncle over at the Vaudeville comes Dyadya Vanya from Moscow, bringing with it no samovar or old lace. Rimas Tuminas, the Vakhtangov Theatre's artistic …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:30AMUpdating Chekhov is nothing new, despite the preliminary flurries about this production, yet the singular directorial take can only highlight the master’s modernity in the bigger issues. I…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:30PMDiamonds one day, stones the next: compulsive giver Timon’s swift descent into raving misanthropy would be better packed into a gritty pop ballad than a full-length play.read more
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:33PMThe rain it raineth every day this week, sometimes with monsoon-like persistence. Yet there’s no dousing the ardour of groundlings and thespian visitors to the global Shakespeare village w…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:20AMOf all Shakespeare’s plays, his reprise of Falstaffian humour to please Queen Bess is surely the most specific in its prosaic gallimaufry of earthy English vocabulary. Yet it’s also the …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:06AMTwo precisely imagined dream-visions bookend a cornucopia on the musical front. I’ll start with the deadly but save the apparently frivolous for the top slot. Christopher Alden’s pitiles…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:00PMYou know what to expect from an audience with Dame Edna Everage. The London-loving Merry Widow of Moonie Ponds can be trusted to hurl her gladdies, patronize the paups in the cheap seats, di…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:57AMKen Russell is, it seems, alive and well and directing Germans in Shakespeare. Actually, no, it's outgrown theatrical terrorist Thomas Ostermeier, but it might as well be our Ken to judge fr…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:23PMIs this the year that G&S became definitively chic again? The slow-burn effect of ENO's "Miller Mikado" and Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy now results in numerous fringe benefits. Sasha Regan'…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:42AMRussia’s Shakespeare, Alexander Pushkin, has enjoyed imaginative treatment on the British stage and screen. Brighton Theatre’s now-legendary Vanity conjured the world of Eugene Onegin vi…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:31PMThe 1968 film at least has Beryl Reid, who could even have lit up the kind of third-tier Carry On affair Frank Marcus’s flat script often resembles, as well as documentary-value scenes of …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:42AMTen years on from 9/11 and the polyphony of reactions will not, and should not, be stilled. Creative artists have had to tread carefully in what they amass, and how they present it. Headlong…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:36AM"Whoring after the public taste" is how Ingmar Bergman described some rather funny hanky-panky in one of his most singular films. It's what showbusiness thrives on, and it's fine if done wel…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:00AM