2014
Matt Wolf
That old canard about there being no good roles for women needed revising time and again in the theatre year just gone, so much so that end-of-year judging panels for the year's best faced far more competition among the female contenders than they did among the men (such supreme all-male ensembles as the My Night with Reg team notwithstanding). Whether it was the Massachusetts class warrior brought mightily to life by Imelda Staunton in the Broadway export Good People or Eve Best letting down both her hair and her defenses to suggest a newly sensual if ever-intelligent Cleopatra at Read more ...
Veronica Lee
It may not have been the most stellar year for comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe, but 2014 was made memorable not just by a long-awaited reunion, but also by witnessing a fine solo debut of a performer we're more used to seeing as part of a terrific double act. It was fun, too, to see the development of talented live performers – some newbies, another continuing to find her voice after a few years in the business. And lastly for seeing others keeping on doing what they do very, very well.Monty Python, O2 Arena LondonMonty Python Live (Mostly): One Down, Five to GoFor decades it seemed unlikely Read more ...
theartsdesk
From the clubs of Berlin to the pubs of Birmingham, via Somerset and New York, our new music writers select their most memorable gigs of 2014. Drenge, Hare & Hounds, Birmingham, FebruaryIn February, teenage drum and guitar two-piece Drenge were basking in the unexpected media glare caused by Tom Watson MP. They were also touring their self-titled debut album of high-octane rock ’n’ roll, and those curious enough to see them in a room above a pub in South Birmingham were treated to a spectacle of raw music and snotty attitude. Fiery tunes like “Gun Crazy”, “I Wanna Break You In Half” Read more ...
David Nice
When everything works – conducting, singing, production, costumes, sets, lighting, choreography where relevant – then there’s nothing like the art of opera. But how often does that happen? In my experience, very seldom, but not this year. It's been of such a vintage that I couldn’t possibly choose the best out of six fully-staged productions – three of them from our only native director of genius, Richard Jones, who as one of his favourite singers, Susan Bullock, put it to me, deserves every gong going – and one concert performance.Fortunately I didn’t need to lean too hard on my Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It is a truism that the great tradition of documentary filmmaking has long since migrated to the big screen. Factual takes time which costs money, and squeezed television producers rarely have enough of either. It's not uncommon for films shown in Storyville, the BBC's admirable international strand, to have started out with a cinema release. And yet somehow 2014 saw some very solid, respectable work in factual. The best came about partly thanks to technology, which has allowed for the proliferation of unmanned cameras, useful for getting close to suspects in police stations and big animals Read more ...
graham.rickson
Search for shops which still sell classical CDs and it’s likely that you’ll be disappointed, in the UK at least. Peruse the surviving major labels’ lists of new releases and the reissues often outnumber the new recordings. But we live in an age when it’s never been cheaper, or easier, to discover good music in great performances. You just need to know where to look. Scanning an online retailer’s catalogue will never be as enjoyable as browsing through the racks in a well-run shop, but it means that virtually anything can be obtained within a few days at the click of a mouse. Legions of Read more ...
Simon Munk
The best games of 2014 were often to be found not from the "AAA" videogame equivalents to Hollywood, but, of course, bedroom coders and small, independent teams. These are the best of the wild and weird "indie" games of the year…Minecraft Pocket EditionNot strictly a 2014 release but the updates that arrived in June/July finally turned an amusing diversion into a proper game, almost the equal of the fantastic desktop edition. For beginners – this is a collaborative and hugely powerful virtual Lego-a-like. Stuart HoughtonJazzpunkThe spirit of Hunter S Thomson haunted this surreal noir-on-acid Read more ...