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theartsdesk Q&A: Sex researcher Shere Hite

Jasper Rees Saturday, 05 October 2013

This week Channel 4 embarks on a season of programmes about sex. Real sex, it claims, in real British bedrooms. A new series called Masters of Sex dramatises the story of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, who from 1957 pioneered research into sexual response. And then there is Sex Box, in which couples will perform the eponymous activity in the eponymous container and then come out and discuss it in front of Mariella Frostrup and a live audience.

theartsdesk Q&A: Actress Sheridan Smith

Jasper Rees Sunday, 15 September 2013

There’s a song in the musical version of Legally Blonde, in which peroxide ditz Elle celebrates her impending good fortune. “Oh my god, oh my god, you guys,” she sings exultantly as she prepares to accept her beau’s proposal of marriage. Since leaving the role at the start of 2011, Sheridan Smith has continued hollering the words more or less non-stop.

10 Questions for Internet Broadcaster Jamal Edwards

joe Muggs Monday, 15 April 2013

In six and a half years of existence, SBTV has redefined what youth culture broadcasting can be. It began as nothing more than a YouTube channel where Jamal Edwards would put up videos he had filmed of his favourite grime MCs – but his natural ambition and charm ensured it kept expanding from that base.

theartsdesk Q&A: Writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson

Jasper Rees Thursday, 14 March 2013

Is Steptoe and Son the platonic ideal of the British sitcom? Two men trapped in eternal stasis, imprisoned by class and bound together by family ties as if by hoops of steel, never to escape: it’s what half-hour comedy should be. Posterity would seem to agree, because since the sitcom ended in 1974 the two rag and bone men have never been out of work, appearing in the cinema, on stage and radio.

Interview: Braquo and A Prophet screenwriter Abdel Raouf Dafri

Kieron Tyler Friday, 27 April 2012

Explaining the difference between the first series of the uncompromising French policier Braquo and the second, which he has come on board to write, Abdel Raouf Dafri says his take is “even more violent, even more sarcastic. The line between the good guys and the bad guys is even more fluid”. Dafri knows about bad guys. He wrote Mesrine and A Prophet. He also knows series one of Braquo is a tough act to follow.

theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Zach Braff

Jasper Rees Sunday, 12 February 2012

Zach Braff (b 1975) is overwhelmingly known as the star of Scrubs, the hugely popular American hospital comedy which came with a side order of surrealism. But fans of low-budget indie cinema will also cherish fond memories of Garden State, which he wrote, directed and starred in alongside Natalie Portman.

theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Tom Hollander

Jasper Rees Sunday, 06 November 2011

A few years ago something curious happened to Tom Hollander. He grew up. As a brilliant young actor he won the Sunday Times Ian Charleson Award for a series of stage performances whose governing tone was mercurial energy. But as he moved into film, the sense was of an actor who was more eager to be noticed than believed.

theartsdesk Q&A: Writer/Director David Leland

Hilary Whitney Saturday, 02 July 2011

David Leland: 'There was a lot of me in Trevor. I was getting rid of a lot of anger in my system about what I went through in terms of education - or lack of it'

David Leland (b 1947) has worked extensively both sides of the Atlantic but he is best known, both as a writer and a director, for his shrewd observations of ordinary people struggling against the constraints and hypocrisy of the accepted social mores of English life in films such as Mona Lisa (1986), Personal Services (1987) and Wish You Were Here (1987). However, it was Made in Britain (1982), a television play written by Leland for Channel 4 and...

theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Nicholas Parsons

Hilary Whitney Sunday, 05 June 2011

Nicholas Parsons in celebratory mode on 'The Arthur Haynes Show': 'I was taking the role of the straight man to the comedian into a different direction'

Nicholas Parsons has been an actor – he is most adamant that he is first and foremost an actor – for almost 70 years, so it’s not surprising, given the erratic nature of his profession, that he has been obliged to assume a number of alternative guises over the years from leading man to comedy sidekick to quiz master. Yet despite this, he is no chameleon. He has somehow managed to pull off the trick of being supremely adaptable whilst remaining resolutely true to himself – you’ll never catch...

theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Christopher Eccleston

Hilary Whitney Saturday, 30 April 2011

Christopher Eccleston’s performances have a raw-boned, visceral quality which makes him a sometimes unsettling - but always compelling - actor to watch.