The saga of Annie and the Caldwells’ debut album is lengthy and convoluted. The record probably wouldn’t have existed at all had crate-digging record collectors not chanced upon Waiting for the Trumpet to Sound, a 1974 single by gospel group the Staples Jr Singers, released on a Mississippi label so obscure that only one copy … Read more
‘I thought I looked too healthy to play her,” says Miyako Yoshida of her debut in Giselle, back in the 90s, when she was a vibrant, strong young dancer asked to play the part of the sweet village girl with a weak heart. “But from the first time I came on stage, I could just … Read more
It was 1999. I was doing A-levels in Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, the former mining community I depict in my TV series Sherwood. My comprehensive school was one of the biggest in the country, one of a very small number with a working theatre. I wouldn’t be doing what I get to do now without that … Read more
In the late 80s, there was a trilogy of dramas by Malcolm McKay called A Wanted Man. It starred Denis Quilley and Bill Paterson and at the centre had the most phenomenal performance by Michael Fitzgerald as Billy, a man arrested for gross indecency who comes to be suspected of the murder of a child. … Read more
Do you know how many autistic people there are in the UK? The answer is an estimated 700,000. Yet until now, there has never been a single feature-length film directed by a group of autistic people. Or at least not one that has secured a theatrical release in the UK and slots at festivals worldwide. … Read more
The Deutsche Börse photography foundation prize is back, with four shortlisted artists, each nominated for a solo exhibition or book presented or published in the last year. It’s a quiet, solemn and laconic show ranging from lyrical, captivating portraits of Versace-clad Black cowboys in the American south to a woman hugging rocks. The show begins … Read more
Tennessee Williams’ semi-autobiographical “memory play” is sentimental by its nature. Memory takes poetic licence and is “seated predominantly in the heart”, Williams tells us in his opening. This production shows us how poetic it can be but also how nightmarish and tormenting. Exquisitely directed by Jay Miller, the story of pained family love between narrator … Read more
Nervous investors seeking news about the plunging markets on Monday afternoon would have been out of luck if they turned to the websites of The New York Post, The Daily Caller, One America News or The Blaze. Not one of those right-leaning outlets featured articles about the sell-off as the closing bell rang, cementing Wall … Read more
Should your social media occasionally present you with publishing-related content, you may have spotted proofs for Natasha Brown’s Universality on your feed last autumn. The excitement with which various “bookfluencers” clutched them was twofold. Brown appeared on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list in 2023, and Universality is the follow-up to her 2021 … Read more
Taken too early by the Aids pandemic, the artist Larry Stanton created work for an exuberant, prodigious handful of years before dying in 1984 at age 37. Championed by David Hockney, whose work his paintings at time resemble, Stanton excelled in creating portraits of gay men that are at once guileless and penetrating. Clearing Gallery … Read more