sun 15/06/2025

Buzz

He'll be back: ex-governor returns to what he knows

Interesting movie news. Arnold Schwarzenegger, having wrapped up his term as governor of California and pretty much completed the bankrupting of the state, will be taking time out from impregnating the payroll to return to the day job: making...

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London’s South Bank to be engulfed by the past

Vintage at Southbank Centre will celebrate the pop culture of Britain's past

The weekend of 29 to 31 July will see London's Festival Hall transformed into what the venue describes as a “multi–venue vintage playground”. Vintage, founded by Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway, comes to London for the first time to celebrate the...

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Beginner's Guide to the music of Scandinavia: not what it says it is

Certain Nordic countries are identified with particular forms of music. Norway and Finland are the home to various strands of metal. Sweden’s pop songwriters and producers are world-renowned, attracting the likes of Britney Spears to Scandinavia....

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Opera North U-turn once "queer" is changed to "gay"

The Yorkshire aphorism, "There's nowt so queer as folks", might have been coined to describe the row. The alteration of a single word in a community opera wracked by furore over claimed homophobia has saved it from being banned. Opera North has...

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Why Ticciati will be great for Glyndebourne

Robin Ticciati with the score of Janáček's Jenůfa at a Glyndebourne study day, 2009

Robin the boy wonder, as he was somewhat patronisingly dubbed during his prodigious rise to conducting stardom, will make a bracing Batman for Glyndebourne Festival Opera when he takes over from current music director Vladimir Jurowski in January...

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Bush Theatre: Yorkshire’s Madani Younis gets the top job

Outsider in town: the new artistic director, Madani Younis

Bush watchers — a species of theatre buff with a particular interest in the rapid changes now happening to the Bush Theatre in West London — have been waiting for several weeks to see which of the various rumours are true about who will be the venue...

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Coming Up Later at the Old Vic Tunnels

The Old Vic Tunnels won't look like this for the three nights of the Coming Up Festival

It’s not often that a venue’s stage door is easier to find than its main entrance, but The Old Vic Tunnels is one such location. For those behind Coming Up Later, however, this is all part of the fun of a three-evening underground festival...

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Opera North: not homophobic, just craven?

All inclusive by the Northern seaside?

The kerfuffle over the collapse of a community opera, Beached, to a libretto by Billy Elliot writer Lee Hall with music by Harvey Brough, seems to have gone international. In short, the main school in the Bridlington area fielding 300 participants...

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Shared Experience: sharing the work

Opening up the process: Shared Experience's joint artistic director Polly Teale

Shared Experience is certainly living up to its name; in a radical departure from normal theatre conventions, the company is currently sharing part of its rehearsal process with audiences as it develops Helen Edmundson’s latest work, Mary Shelley,...

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Natural Pursuits: Simon Gray at BFI Southbank

Simon Gray: Through the glass, darkly

It’s hardly as if he needed critical resuscitation, but the work of Simon Gray is enjoying a moment in the limelight. Butley, starring Dominic West, is currently on in the West End, while in August BFI Southbank is to show a season of films...

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Lil B's I'm Gay (I'm Happy): a rap revolution?

It's not often you can call pop music revolutionary, but this record is - in more ways than one. Bringing together techniques of engagement that have been honed by Radiohead, Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne and... um... Justin Bieber, the 21-year-old Berkley,...

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Milking classical music in Dortmund

What does it take to get the masses into the concert hall? Here's an ingenious marketing campaign which is both mad and clever (though hardly an enticement if you're lactose intolerant). All I can say is, lucky cows, being force-fed Philippe...

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