James Sherwood 08:00am Life as a stand-up: People who come up to you after a gig always think they are saying something nice ...
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Graeme Allister 07:00am The success of the musicals Hairspray and Legally Blonde means more movies are heading for the stage. But will the magic work?
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Lyn Gardner 05:34pm The long-sold-out Masque of the Red Death is about to release new tickets - get 'em while they're hot.
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Lyn Gardner 03:56pm This week sees some ambitious programming on the Hampshire coast and a 'sumptuously watchable' Rani Moorthy in Shades of Brown
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Andy Field 08:00am When a stage performance lusts after the spectacle of film, it loses its intimacy and immediacy
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Christine Finn 08:00am We've come a long way since The Red Shoes. But can today's screen dancers attract a mainstream audience?
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George Hunka 01:15pm We need an equivalent in the States of Michael Billington's new book on postwar UK drama. But we're not going to get it
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Kelly Nestruck 11:00am The National Theatre director says the reason there's a shortage of straight plays in London is simple. Not enough good drama is being written
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Judith Mackrell 01:30pm As regional companies grow in strength and ambition, could the capital be losing its monopoly of the dance scene?
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Matt Wolf 07:30am More British audiences are getting in on a time-honoured American routine and rising to their feet during the curtain call. Does this suggest a newly emotional public?
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Judith Mackrell Wednesday 21.11.07, 01:30pm
As regional companies grow in strength and ambition, could the capital be losing its monopoly of the dance scene?
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Nicholas Blincoe Thursday 15.11.07, 04:00pm
Punk rock and jazz hands do not mix, as I learnt when I had to sit through this horrible musical
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Matt Wolf Wednesday 21.11.07, 07:30am
More British audiences are getting in on a time-honoured American routine and rising to their feet during the curtain call. Does this suggest a newly emotional public?
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Charlotte Higgins Monday 19.11.07, 08:30am
After a prolonged attack of blubbing while at the National Theatre's War Horse, I wanted to get to the bottom of what sets me off
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Mark Fisher Friday 16.11.07, 09:30am
Yes, the theatre is dominated by the liberal left. But imagine the alternative...
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George Hunka Tuesday 20.11.07, 08:07am
A theatre not concerned with investigating the darknesses of the heart and spirit demonstrates a fatal weakness
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Matt Wolf Monday 19.11.07, 03:00pm
It's unthinkable that Broadway will not resume its schedule soon - but what if a badly burned public decides not to return?
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Lyn Gardner Monday 19.11.07, 12:00pm
The government must help young people fulfil their artistic potential
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More theatre & performing arts
Obituary: Choreographer who blended showmanship and artistry to found his own company and help modernise ballet
Review: Mike Packer's comedy inspired by Johnny Rotten's rumble in the jungle is very funny, says Lyn Gardner
Yuliya Didenko: Koi carp in the Chinese pool in the park near Marcelle, France
Got a picture that would be perfect for the arts blog? Email us with images and the best will be posted here and in our gallery
In Search of Arcadia has come up with the goods. Big time. Burial are mad hot right now, and if you get your mitts on Bloc Party's Flux single on vinyl, the B-side is this awesome Burial remix of Where is Home?
Beowulf: innovation or tragedy? Vote now.
For the answers to previous questions click here.
On Monday night I shall be at Koko in Camden, watching Vic Chesnutt. He has a voice that sounds all swampy and reptilian, and lyrics that are funny and gnarly and beautiful. How can you not love a man who once told the New York Daily News: "Other people write about the bling and the booty. I write about the pus and the gnats. To me, that's beautiful."
Wednesday, I’ll be off to see the Duke Spirit. Their new record is brilliant, and I have a long-standing passion for their song Love is an Unfamiliar Name. I’ll be getting there early because Creepy Morons are supporting, and their Piece of Mind is one of my favourite singles of the year.
I have a day off on Thursday, so I’m going to attend a matinee performance of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts’ One Act Play Festival at the Pleasance Theatre in Islington, and in the evening I’ll be heading over to west London to see Josh Ritter at Shepherd’s Bush. Ritter is a truly exceptional lyricist, and he and his band always put on a whipcracking performance.
I’ve been mining the Cherry Red vaults lately, so I’d wager much of this week will be spent listening to Ella Mae Morse, Erik Satie and a new 60s pop collection The Changing of the Guard — a riveting combination of pop music and interview clips with luminaries such as Andrew Loog Oldham, Michael Caine and Julie Christie. I’ll also been listening a little more to This Fool Can Die Now, the lovely new Scout Niblett record. You can see the video to Kiss, her duet with Mr Will Oldham, here. And I’ll be getting better acquainted the intriguing Fleet Foxes.
Last weekend I finished Richard Ford’s The Lay of the Land, so this week I’m starting Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It, which is - broadly speaking - a story about a family in Montana and their love of fly-fishing. I’m reading it for my own pleasure, and also for a piece I’m writing for a website named Caught by the River.
On buses and train journeys lately, I’ve been re-reading Thoreau’s Excursions. If ever you get weary of the bustle of the streets and the clamour of the billboards and the fact that our seasons now seem to be defined by the return of reality TV series’, Thoreau is a wonderful way to remind yourself how amazing the world is: “The booming of the bittern,” he writes, “…is frequently heard in our fens, in the morning and evening, sounding like a pump, or the chopping of wood in a frosty morning in some distant farmyard.”
My tip of the week: A boiled egg and Blossom Dearie is the perfect way to start the day.
