fri 04/10/2024

We made it

Strike: An Uncivil War review - shame of the nation

Forty years later, they have haggard faces, grey hair if any, and sorrowful expressions tinged with incredulity at the outrages perpetrated against them. At one point, the burliest of them cries. One who struggled with drink and drugs says four of...

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We Made It: Guitar Maker Brian Cohen

Tucked away in a warren of residential streets in the older part of Guildford, The Old Glassworks looks like a lock-up garage, and seems to have been designed to repel unwanted attention with a private force-field of anonymity. Once you've been...

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We Made It: Basket-maker Lois Walpole

Basket-making is one of the world’s oldest and most universal crafts. It predates pottery by thousands of years and features in tall tales from the very beginnings of recorded history. According to a creation myth from ancient Mesopotamia, the...

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We Made It: Horn Maker Tom Fisher

Ask anyone for the name of a violin or piano maker, and they’ll probably be able to summon up Stradivarius and Steinway. What about horns? Do concertgoers ever look closely at these instruments – noticing, perhaps, that some have four, others five...

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We Made It: Stufish Entertainment Architects

While most set designers come from an art or theatre background, Ric Lipson has parlayed his architectural training into an unusual skillset: designing not just what goes on inside entertainment venues, but the buildings themselves. At his studio...

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We Made It: 'Carol' Costume Designer Sandy Powell

If there is a successor to the great Hollywood costume designer Edith Head, it is Sandy Powell, the British designer of six films directed by Martin Scorsese, three each by Todd Haynes and Neil Jordan, and others by the likes of Derek Jarman, Sally...

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We Made It: Stuntwoman Tracy Caudle

With a raft of high-quality digital effects available, real stunts might seem a little old-fashioned. In truth, the art of the stunt is alive and well: according to veteran performer Tracy Caudle, not only is it often cheaper to film the real thing...

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We Made It: 'The Revenant' Production Designer Jack Fisk

The Revenant's production designer Jack Fisk wasn’t required to build multiple sets for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 1823 wilderness epic. Indelible, however, are the few man-made settlements and structures with which Fisk marked the route of...

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We Made It: Double Bass Maker Laurence Dixon

Double bass maker Laurence Dixon has solid oak floors in his new shop-front in Herne Hill, south London. The solid oak door which leads to the workshop behind has three (not two) solid bronze hinges and settles into its solid oak frame as softly as...

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We Made It: The Electric Recording Company

Always desperately seeking the next profit-boosting lifeline, the record industry is getting all worked up about the "vinyl revival". While sales of CDs and downloads have been falling, those shiny black circles, once believed defunct, have been...

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We Made It: Watchmaker Roger W Smith

Long before the Swiss came to dominate the watchmaking world, British horologists were leading the way, grappling with miniscule screws and the vagaries of time. In the eyes of many collectors and aficionados they still are, thanks to Roger Smith,...

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We Made It: Concert hall acoustics

Glasgow has a brand new concert hall, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra has a brand new home. A move for the Orchestra from Henry Wood Hall, a converted church in the city’s West End it has occupied since 1979, has been on the cards for...

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