wed 14/05/2025

biography

The Born Free Legacy, BBC Four

If you have fond childhood memories of either the Born Free book or movie, you might want to stay away. From the opening moments of this documentary, the knowledge that lion-loving conservationist George Adamson was fatally shot in the back on a...

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Edinburgh Fringe: Kevin Eldon/ Lovelace: A Rock Musical/ Jeremy Lion/ Susan Calman

Kevin Eldon: Titting about in his first solo show, but his character comedy is huge fun

He may call it Titting About, but Kevin Eldon’s show, his first as a solo performer (at the grand age of 49), should be made compulsory viewing for young comics. For this is a man who has learned his craft, the value of good writing, of stage...

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True Stories: We Live in Public, More4

The fears of a clown: Dot-com pioneer Josh Harris learnt that the future isn't always bright

With the last ever series of Big Brother dominating Channel Four’s schedules for the rest of the summer, the first TV screening of this Sundance Film Festival award-winner couldn’t have been better timed. Because the chillingly disconcerting “art...

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Ballet biography wins top theatre book prize

The Society for Theatre Research’s book of the year award has been won by ballet critic Jann Parry for Different Drummer, her biography of the Royal Ballet choreographer Kenneth MacMillan. The book was chosen this morning in a tight finish at the...

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Johnny Mercer: The Dream's on Me, BBC Four

Johnny Mercer (right) with Nat King Cole, one of his discoveries for Capitol Records

Jazz enthusiast Clint Eastwood, who co-produced this film with the BBC's Arena, clearly harbours a particular regard for songwriter, singer, impresario and record company mogul Johnny Mercer. When Eastwood made his film of John Berendt's book...

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Different Drummer: the Life of Kenneth MacMillan

The spy out in the cold, the alienated Heathcliff of ballet, rough-hewn, moody and a little frightening - this is an image that’s commonly paraded of the choreographer Kenneth MacMillan. His ballets stand up that image, staging barely watchable...

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theartsdesk Q&A: Tim Lawrence

Tim Lawrence is an author and academic, whose musical studies have led him from the dance scene of the 1990s to researching New York's disco scene – his Love Saves the Day was the first and remains the definitive history of the music, history and...

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