Interviews with leading figures from the arts
Singer-songwriter Peggy Seeger: still in the vanguard of her musical dynasty
Monday, 12 April 2021
If American music has a royal family, it’s surely the Seeger clan. Charles, the patriarch, the composer, musicologist and teacher who could be said to have invented ethnomusicology, married first to Constance de Clyver Edson, a violinist and teacher.
Filmmaker Darius Marder: 'Deafness is a culture. That's not being PC'
Saturday, 03 April 2021
Sound of Metal has been a long time coming. Director and writer Darius Marder faced years of delays ranging from casting changes to the whole world shutting down. Was it worth the wait? Well, six Academy Award nominations including Best Film certainly suggest it was.
theartsdesk Q&A: Author Sam Mills on the...
Monday, 29 March 2021
Sam Mills’s writing includes the wondrously weird novel The Quiddity of Will Self, the semi-memoir Fragments of My Father, and Chauvo-Feminism (The...
theartsdesk Q&A: conductor Klaus Mäkelä
Thursday, 25 March 2021
Let the facts – and the music-making you can see and hear online – speak for themselves first. Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä became the Oslo...
10 Questions for Vocalist-Lyricist Georgia Mancio
Tuesday, 23 March 2021
This week marks a major step in the songwriting collaboration between British/Italian singer-songwriter Georgia Mancio and Alan Broadbent, the Grammy...
theartsdesk Q&A: Daryl Hall
Legendary singer-songwriter talks recording, vaccines and reaching a billion streams |
theartsdesk Q&A: actor and comedian Andi Osho on her debut novel 'Asking For A Friend'
The multi-tasking artist talks social media, 'Line of Duty', and learning how to not act |
theartsdesk Q&A: Amina Cain on her first novel and her eternal fascination with suggestion
The American writer discusses 'Indelicacy' and characters who are flawed and unfixed |
theartsdesk Q&A: Isabella Pappas on how 'Finding Alice' is a blueprint for bereavement
Youngest star of the ITV drama discusses grief, teenage girls, and getting into character |
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Polly Walker on 'Bridgerton' and the new breed of period drama
Talking wigs, women, and her (brief) experience of coronavirus |
10 Questions for Musician and Broadcaster Cerys Matthews
Thoughts on an album which places poets centre-stage |
theartsdesk Q&A: poet laureate Simon Armitage on landscapes, libraries, home and edgelands
Interview with the Yorkshire-born poet ahead of his appearance on The South Bank Show |
Filmmaker Frank Marshall: 'People don’t understand what geniuses The Bee Gees were'
Director of the new Bee Gees documentary discusses the brothers' legacy in music |
10 Questions for Singer/Pianist Joe Stilgoe
Joe Stilgoe learned 250 new songs for the 67 episodes of "Stilgoe in the Shed" |
theartsdesk Q&A: Mick Talbot of The Style Council
The keyboard don discusses the very Eighties ups and downs of life in The Style Council |
Filmmaker Bassam Tariq: 'Great cinema doesn't need to be perfect - embrace the imperfections'
Director of 'Mogul Mowgli' discusses taking risks, and the differences between the British- and American-Asian experience |
10 Questions for Poet and Critic Rebecca Tamás
On 'Strangers' and the urgent interconnectedness of the human and non-human |
theartsdesk Q&A: Sally Anne Gross and Dr George Musgrave, authors of 'Can Music Make You Sick?'
On World Mental Health Day we meet the authors of an incisive new study of music and musicians |
theartsdesk Q&A: musician Kevin Rowland - 'it was painful to be misunderstood and misinterpreted'
To coincide with its reissue, the Dexys Midnight Runners lynchpin considers his solo album ‘My Beauty’ |
'I loved being a dresser': Sir Ronald Harwood, Oscar-winning writer, dies at 85
A memorial interview with the playwright and scriptwriter who enjoyed a remarkable Indian summer |
theartsdesk Q&A: author Katharina Volckmer
Interview with the first-time novelist on her deeply funny, subversive new novel |
Directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui: 'The disability community is the world community'
Interview with the men behind Netflix's new Paralympic documentary 'Rising Phoenix' |
theartsdesk Q&A: Record label New Heavy Sounds
Co-founder Ged Murphy sheds light on the world of Britain's most original heavy rock independent |
theartsdesk Q&A: author Jorge Consiglio
On brutality, estrangement and what solitude can bring to a work of fiction |
theartsdesk Q&A: horn player Sarah Willis
Midnight recording sessions and late-running buses; playing Mozart in Havana |
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Mike Hodges
The British writer-director reflects on the making and meaning of his thriller 'Black Rainbow' as it bows on Blu-ray |
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Gemma Whelan
From 'Game of Thrones' to 'Emma' and the new series of 'Killing Eve', upward mobility is the name of her game |
Remembering John Prine, one of the great American singer-songwriters
A tribute to the blue-collar folk poet, who has died at the age of 73 |
Director Marjane Satrapi: ‘The real question is do you like everyone? No? So, why should everyone like you?’
The forthright 'Radioactive' filmmaker on intelligence, ignorance and Marie Curie |
latest in today
Danielle Evans: The Office of Historical Corrections review...
There’s something refreshing about fiction you can easily...
From cancellation to new vigour: pianist and artistic direct...
April 2020 was to have been the celebratory 10th Anniversary Festival of...
Victoria Mas: The Mad Women's Ball review - compelling...
To this day, if you take a stroll down Paris’ Boulevard de l’...
Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings & Watercolours, Ashmolean Muse...
Drawing is the cornerstone of artistic practice, but is often overshadowed by "higher" forms of visual art, such as painting and sculpture. When...
After Life, National Theatre review - thanks for the memorie...
Limbo, in Jack Thorne’s latest play, is a...
Extract: David Lan's As If By Chance
In June 2001 the London Festival of International Theatre brought Amir Nizar Zuabi’s Alive from...
Elinor Cleghorn: Unwell Women review – misunderstanding and...
I’m one of the women in the pages of Elinor Cleghorn’s new history of the female body, Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine and Myth in a...
Album: Joan Armatrading - Consequences
Back in dark days of the first lockdown when she was birthing her new album,...
Reissue CDs Weekly: Screamers - Demo Hollywood 1977
In its first issue of 1979, Melody Maker included an...