sat 10/05/2025

tv

A Merry Little Christmas Eve: theartsdesk recommends

theartsdesk

As we all have only one shopping day left, theartsdesk hopes to make Christmas Eve a little easier by offering a few enlightened recommendations. From our writers on new and classical music, opera and ballet, film and comedy, here is a list of CDs and DVDs that we hope will enhance your 11th-hour shopping experience. Happy Christmas from all at theartsdesk.

 

DVDs


Read more...

The Cultural Highlights of the Decade, BBC Online

Jasper Rees

This week the BBC News online magazine is running a Portrait of the Decade. Each day has brought a consideration of the words, the events, the people, the objects and, today, the cultural highlights of the decade. I was invited to consider those highlights.

Read more...

theartsdesk in Cheltenham: Screenwriters gather

Ellin Stein He's a real nowhere boy: Aaron Johnson as the pre-Beatle John Lennon

The Victorian Gothic (with 1970s additions) maze of Cheltenham Ladies’ College is a far cry from the sun-blasted soundstages of Los Angeles, particularly at this time of year when it’s surrounded by deep piles of swirling autumn leaves. Nevertheless, this past week saw the high-ceilinged, wood-panelled College corridors filled with over 400 scriptwriters, both aspiring and established, rushing to the seminars, panels and pitching sessions offered as part of the Cheltenham Screenwriters'...

Read more...

Ludovic Kennedy, 1919-2009

Jasper Rees

Ludovic Kennedy, whose death at the age of 89 was announced today, will be remembered for many achievements beyond his contribution to broadcasting. But for those who grew up when there were only three channels to choose from, he informed a generation’s idea of what a broadcaster ought to be.

Read more...

theartsdesk in Milan: Death of a Quiz Show Host

william Ward Italy's quiz-show host Mike Bongiorno: 'a Warholian genius for fascinating, entrancing dullness'

Guarda, è come se fosse morta la regina Elisabetta, sai?” I didn’t really need the comparison with the hypothetical demise of our own beloved monarch to be spelled out for me by my partner, a somewhat reserved professor of Paediatric Neurology at one of Rome’s leading hospitals, in order to drive home the deep shock engendered by the sudden death of Italy’s best-loved veteran TV compère on the collective psyche of a nation.

Read more...

Pages

 

latest in today

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

It followed some...

Supergrass, Barrowland, Glasgow review - nostalgia played wi...

It is a family affair at Supergrass shows these days. There were plenty of parents and offspring filing onto the Barrowland’s famous old...

Louis Cole, Roundhouse review - nothing is everything

London's iconic Roundhouse, packed to the rafters, provided the perfect setting for the UK premiere of Louis Cole's groundbreaking album ...

Album: Peter Doherty - Felt Better Alive

Following on from an impressive set with the Libertines – last year’s No 1 album All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade – Peter Doherty...

Here We Are, National Theatre review - Sondheim's sensa...

You don't have to be greeting the modern day with a smile unsupported by events in the wider world to have a field day at Here We Are....

Riefenstahl review - fascinating fascism? Portrait of the Na...

There used to be an unwritten rule among BBC commissioners about how long an interval had to pass before greenlighting a new documentary on a...

Giant, Harold Pinter Theatre review - incendiary Roald Dahl...

When Mark Rosenblatt was preparing his debut play, the miseries of the assault on Gaza were still over the horizon. Now they are here,...

'Classic-era prog’s Olympian pinnacle': Pink Floyd...

Pink Floyd’s “Echoes”, the ineffable progressive rock epic that occupies side two of...

The Surfer review - Nicolas Cage is relentlessly down and ou...

“Don’t live here, don’t surf here,” is the menacing motto (sounds more scary with an Australian accent) of the tanned, muscular denizens of Luna...

Einkvan, Det Norske Teatret, The Coronet Theatre review - al...

Watching the stricken faces on the split screen, I felt at times like callow Farfrae in Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge: when faced...