awards
Gary Naylor
What am I, a philosophical if not political Marxist whose hero is Antonio Gramsci, doing in Harvey Nichols buying Comme des Garçons linen jackets, Church brogues and Mulberry shades? It’s 1987 and I do wear it well though…Chiara Atik’s comedy crosses the Atlantic bearing prizes and venom and could hardly have fetched up anywhere more suited than leafy Richmond’s Orange Tree Theatre. A once Lib-Dem / Conservative marginal seat has swung decisively to the former and seems unlikely to swing back rightwards any time soon. In the programme, the playwright says she wants “to challenge us… to take a Read more ...
Sarah Kent
I thought I might never be able to say it’s been a great year for women artists, so forgive me for focusing solely on them.Things were kickstarted with a retrospective of Barbara Kruger (Serpentine Gallery) who uses words and images to illuminate the way language is (mis)used to cajole, bully, manipulate and lie. Having explored similar territory for 50 some years, you’d have thought the American artist would have run out of ideas. Not a bit of it. Dominating the central space was a huge screen showing Untitled (No Comment) (main picture) which explores the Orwellian soup of Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Legions of Ghibli fanatics may love the heartwarming My Neighbour Totoro and the heartbreaking Grave of the Fireflies, but they revere Spirited Away, their, our, The Godfather and The Wizard of Oz rolled into one. Totoro has been magnificently staged in London, setting the bar high, but it’s a simpler story, a simpler aesthetic and it’s obviously an easier gig to adapt a great film rather than an all-time great film, first winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Waiting for the curtain, I gulped back contradictory thoughts: I was so excited about them getting it right and Read more ...
Gary Naylor
We’re in Moscow (we hear that quite a lot) where an ageing woman on a rare trip out of her apartment block catches sight of an advert in a bank’s window. She is soon inside and subjected to a sales pitch by a keen young bank "manager", torn between his understanding of her dementia and the career-boost the loan will bring. Five months later, she’s in her little flat with a debt collector, a man even more ruthless in pursuit of his objectives – and events take an unexpected turn.Theatre503 continues to find highly promising playwrights through its International Playwriting Award scheme, Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Hilary Mantel, who has died at the age of 70, was a maker of literary history. Wolf Hall, an action-packed 650-page brick of a book about the rise and rise of Thomas Cromwell, won the Man Booker Prize in 2009. Three years later its successor, Bring Up the Bodies, became the first sequel ever to win the prize in its 44-year history. Then came the RSC's stage adaptation of both novels, while the BBC adapted Wolf Hall, with Mark Rylance (pictured below) in the title role. Finally, after a long wait for her fans, came The Mirror & the Light, which followed its predecessors into the Read more ...
Matt Wolf
What the [expletive deleted]?That’s a viewer’s only logical response to the 94th Academy Awards, which was trudging along predictably and fairly aimlessly until such time as Chris Rock took to the stage in the closing hour and events took a dramatic turn. Forget the envelope mix-up of 2017, the streaker of 1974, or Sacheen Littlefeather subbing for Marlon Brando in 1973. None of those unscripted moments can match the shock that ensued when Will Smith responded to a GI Jane joke Rock had made in reference to Smith’s wife’s shorn hair by stepping up to the stage and striking the presenter in Read more ...
mark.kidel
The inaugural Aga Khan Music Awards, a three-day event held last weekend in Lisbon, celebrated nearly 20 years of wide-ranging work dedicated to the preservation of ancient and threatened cultures, an impressive programme of educational initiatives, and the encouragement of musical exchange and experiment in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.These awards are far removed from the world of the Eurovision Song Contest, the Grammys, MOBOs or other well-spun and marketed events: the notion of excellence, which lies at the heart of the Aga Khan Music Initiative, is connected to ideas and practices Read more ...
Matt Wolf
The 91st Academy Awards began with a rousing concert appearance from Queen to kick off a show from which Bohemian Rhapsody led the field with four trophies. Three host-free hours later, the ceremony got a surprise shot of adrenaline from the unexpected Oscar that went to The Favourite’s Olivia Colman for playing a queen. What came between was a scattershot affair marked out by numerous Oscar firsts, repeated standing ovations – from that Queen opener to Rami Malek’s prize for playing Freddie Mercury – and a shorter and sometimes sharper Oscars: a good half-hour or more had been shaved from Read more ...
theartsdesk
Are you a young blogger, vlogger or writer in the field of the arts, books and culture? If so, we've a competition for you to enter.The Hospital Club’s annual h Club100 awards celebrate the most influential and innovative people working in the UK’s creative industries, with nominations from the worlds of film and fashion, art, advertising, theatre, music, television and more. For the second year running they are teaming up with theartsdesk – the home of online arts journalism in the UK – to launch a hunt for young talent.This year the Special Award is for theartsdesk / h Club Young Influencer Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Is #MeSnooze a hashtag? It could well be for those who sat through the 90th annual Academy Awards, an Oscar night so reined in by the current climate in Hollywood that it was as if all the fun and frolics had been leached out of a ceremony always at its best when it lets in a teensy bit of the lowbrow, or at least allows for the unexpected.The unpredictable was certainly the case last year. The Best Picture cock-up (the so-called Envelopegate) wasn’t going to happen twice in a row, even if Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were invited back to do the honours: “Presenting is lovelier the second Read more ...
theartsdesk
At a festive ceremony on Tuesday night at The Hospital Club in central London, the winners were announced for this year's h.Club 100 Awards. The distinguished broacaster John Simpson (pictured below) gave an impassioned keynote address about the value of the UK's creative industries which concluded with amusing advice on the wisdom of eating kedgeree. The comedian Stuart Goldsmith compered with wit, flair and sangfroid. The undoubted star of the night was Lady Leshurr, who accepted her award in the Music category - presented to her by theartsdesk's Thomas H. Green - with a speech that Read more ...
theartsdesk
In July we launched a competition in association with The Hospital Club to unearth talented young critics. We were clear about what we were looking for: “We want to read reviews that make us think – provocative, entertaining writing that gets under the skin of the art it addresses, that dares to ask uncomfortable questions and offer new answers. We’re looking for a review we wish we’d written ourselves. Surprise us, shock us, enrage us.”Entrants, who had to be between 18 and 30, had a month to submit a review of 500 words. It was very pleasing to see young critics writing about all the art Read more ...