Sheila Johnston
Articles By Sheila Johnston
latest in today
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
![The company of The Lonely Londoners - lives forged in the fire of The Kiln](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Company%20of%20The%20Lonely%20Londoners%20-%20credit%20Steve%20Gregson%20%283%29.jpg?itok=GZHzcu3p)
As something of an immigrant to the capital myself in the long hot summer of 1984, I gobbled up Absolute Beginners, Colin...
![Kaleidoscope of Mozart playing: Giorgi Gigashvili takes his bow](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/10.%20Halle_Tchaik4_Jan25_credit_Sharyn_Bellemakers_The_Halle%20%281200x800%29.jpg?itok=qwTtaDS5)
There was excellent music making in the Hallé concert in Manchester last night, and there was self-admitted “noise”. Briefly, the two coincided in...
!['The lead instrumental voice is almost invariably Einaudi’s piano'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Summer%20Portraits%20Cover%20Art%20res.jpg?itok=zCoZT1nq)
Nine billion streams a year. That’s the sheer scale on which the music of Ludovico Einaudi reaches audiences. The Italian, who will be 70 this...
![Too clever? Leo Woodall as Ed Brooks](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Ed%20MAIN.jpg?itok=sLVXyJZ5)
An opening sequence of a drone flying over a busy street in Baghdad, followed by a huge explosion that leaves many casualties and a gaping hole...
![Veronika Jarůšková, Marek Zwiebel, Boris Giltburg, Peter Jarůšek and Šimon Truszka in a bracing encore](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/250121_PavelHaasQuartetGiltburg-2.jpg?itok=MC_LEC9Z)
Serious realisation of the seven often thorny Martinů string quartets is a major undertaking. When I spoke to Veronika Jarůšková and...
![Amelia Coburn, replete with baritone ukulele](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Amelia%20Coburn%20Brighton%204.jpg?itok=czWW-CeH)
The quandary is this. Middlesbrough singer Amelia Coburn made one of my favourite albums of last year, her debut, Between the Moon and the...
![Hungary hearts: Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones have fled 1940s Europe in ‘The Brutalist’](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/The%20Brutalist%20pic.png?itok=68AxJT_L)
There’s a moment, as we build to a climax in Brady Corbet’s first film, The Childhood of a Leader (2015), when a servant at a...
![Avante garde experimentation in FKA Twigs new album Eusexua](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/FKA%20Twigs%20Eusexua_0.jpg?itok=WhKRcVDm)
It would be really easy to get hung up on the definition for this album. Is it a new sexuality term? A holiday genre of technopop? A planet that...
![Sounding plausibly Welsh: Martin Clunes as Nathan Williams](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Clunes%20MAIN.jpg?itok=Od2Z1kmY)
If nothing else, ITV’s new thriller Out There is a fabulous advertisement for the Welsh countryside. Many scenes were shot in Brecon and...