Interviews with leading figures from the arts
'I let it emerge': an interview with Fiona Benson on the cusp of the TS Eliot Prize announcement
Friday, 20 January 2023
Fiona Benson’s new collection of poems, Ephemeron (Jonathan Cape, 2022), tries to capture those things that are always moving out of grasp.
'Corsage' director Marie Kreutzer: 'Being beautiful is her only currency'
Friday, 30 December 2022
It’s 1877, and Austria’s Empress Elisabeth (Vicky Krieps) is first seen gasping under freezing water, skin blotchy with another extreme treatment to maintain her legendary beauty. Every day she constricts herself in her corset, as she’s constrained as Emperor Franz Joseph’s trophy wife. Nearing the dangerous female age of 40, the corset tightens notch by notch.
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Mike Hodges
Thursday, 22 December 2022
It can be reasonably argued that Mike Hodges, who died on 17 December, was the finest director of British crime films since Alfred Hitchcock. Though...
10 Questions for writer and translator Saskia...
Wednesday, 21 December 2022
Johanne Lykke Holm’s spellbinding novel Strega recounts one teen’s journey into womanhood. Leaving her parental home to work with eight...
10 Questions for comedian Alex Edelman
Monday, 19 December 2022
US comic Alex Edelman first came to the attention of British audiences in 2014, when he was named best newcomer in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for...
10 Questions for Bruce Lindsay, biographer of Ivor Cutler
How the teacher-poet became like a Zelig figure across so many swathes of UK culture |
Directors the Dardenne brothers: 'To be living means to be fragile'
The Belgian masters discuss 'Tori and Lokita', and finding humanity on film |
Wilko Johnson (1947-2022): The Bard of Canvey Island
Snug-bar confessions in an epic Canvey Island encounter with the late Essex great |
Q&A: Bianca Stigter, director of 'Three Minutes: A Lengthening'
The historian and filmmaker discusses her haunting documentary about a Polish shtetl filmed on the brink of the abyss in 1938 |
Leslie Phillips: 'I can be recognised by my voice alone'
Saying goodbye to the actor famous for saying hello |
‘Stripping naked the process of making theatre’: Martin Crimp talks about his latest play
The playwright talks about 'Not One of These People', which he is performing himself, digital creativity and constraints on authorship |
'The first thing I do when I wake up is write.' Hilary Mantel, 1952-2022
An interview with the novelist the morning after she won the Man Booker Prize for the first time |
theartsdesk Q&A: Abel Selaocoe
The South African cellist and rising star of World and Classical on the music, life and history embedded in his debut album 'Where Is Home' |
theartsdesk Q&A: Horn player Sarah Willis on returning to Cuba
Guaguancós, cha-cha-chas and crickets as the horn player commissions a new work in Havana |
theartsdesk Q&A: bass-baritone Christopher Purves on communicating everything from Handel to George Benjamin
The great singing actor on his best experiences - including Zurich Opera's new Ring |
10 Questions for art historian and fiction writer Chloë Ashby
On sights, acts of seeing and book 'Wet paint', inspired by Manet’s 'A Bar at the Folies-Bergère' |
theartsdesk Q&A: Marc Almond of Soft Cell
The Eighties icon tells how Andy Warhol, Chernobyl, nostalgia and the colour purple inspired the first Soft Cell album in 20 years |
10 Questions for Musician Jarboe
'skin blood women roses', collaboration and the secret to excellent hearing |
William Hurt, great Hollywood contrarian, has died at 71
A string of brilliant performances cemented his place as a great face of 1980s cinema |
The unexpurgated Clement Crisp - in memoriam
The titan of ballet critics, who has died at 95, once agreed to be grilled - with scorching results |
10 Questions for filmmaker Romola Garai
The star’s macabre directorial debut 'Amulet' is fuelled by anger |
10 Questions for musician and DJ Pete Tong
On his latest EP and his musical life thus far |
theartsdesk Q&A: jazz musician Charles Lloyd
Jazz Zelig’s long, strange trip from Howlin’ Wolf to Norah Jones |
theartsdesk Q&A: Low, the band - 'Structure is key in minimalism. Especially in pop minimalism'
Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk reveal their thoughts about recent album ‘Hey What’ and offer a gardening tip |
'A nun destroyed my tent': artist Kate Daudy talks about NFTs, refugees, and having her work thrown out with the trash
The artist's first 'Non-Fungible Token' goes live as part of a new online exhibition |
Documenting the unimaginable: photographer Sebastião Salgado talks about climate change, dodging caimans and changing perspectives
How does Western behaviour risk turning the Amazonian paradise into a hell? |
RIP dancer and photographer Colin Jones - obituary
Dubbed the George Orwell of photojournalism, Jones married Lynn Seymour |
10 Questions for writer Lucia Osborne-Crowley
The author of 'My Body Keeps Your Secrets' on trauma, shame and community |
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Marco Kreuzpaintner
What his new film 'The Collini Case' says about Germany, the Nazis, justice and the law |
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