wed 17/09/2025

Ismene Brown

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Bio
Dr Ismene Brown designed and launched the original version of The Arts Desk in 2009, and was the Site Coordinator and a board director for three years, as well as its dance editor. A musician trained at the Royal College of Music, she has been dance critic for the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator, and has also written for TAD on classical music, theatre, TV and film. Since then she has gained an MA at UCL and DPhil at Oxford University for work on the Soviet politician and arts minister Ekaterina Furtseva.

Articles By Ismene Brown

Filumena, Theatre Royal Windsor review - Mozartian marriage comedy with pasta sauce

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theartsdesk Q&A: Nina Ananiashvili, founder of the State Ballet of Georgia

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Accolade, Theatre Royal Windsor review - orgy-loving knight makes for topical pre-election drama

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The White Factory, Marylebone Theatre review - what price dignity in hell?

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Patriots, Noël Coward Theatre review - crash-bang brilliant Putin comedy does it again

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4000 Miles, Minerva Theatre, Chichester review - brilliant Atkins in a tender play

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The Vortex, Chichester Festival Theatre review - naturalism clogs up Coward's pipes

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Hunting legendary treasure with ballet's Indiana Jones - Pierre Lacotte 1932-2023

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'You want to cry from loving to do it so much' - Lynn Seymour 1939-2023

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Dogs of Europe, Belarus Free Theatre, Barbican Theatre review - doom art with doom reality

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The unexpurgated Clement Crisp - in memoriam

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Ava: The Secret Conversations, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith review - about Ava Gardner's effing

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Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker!, Sadler's Wells Theatre review - new candy, but the nuts are off

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The Seven Pomegranate Seeds, Rose Theatre, Kingston review - misogynist Euripides stands corrected

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The Cherry Orchard, Windsor Theatre Royal review - Tolstoy meets Mrs Two Soups

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The Mirror and the Light, Gielgud Theatre review - nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition

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Unexpectedly, there’s a sly reference to James Joyce’s Ulysses interpolated into Act One (in case we hadn’t caught the not...

Appl, Levickis, Wigmore Hall review - fun to the fore in cab...

Concerts at the Wigmore Hall offer many types of pleasure, but not...

Album: The Divine Comedy - Rainy Sunday Afternoon

Neil Hannon has been recording and touring as the Divine Comedy since 1989 and has tried a fair few flavours along the way, from chamber pop to...

Lammermuir Festival 2025, Part 2 review - from the soaringly...

My colleague Boyd Tonkin visited the Lammermuir Festival for the first time this year. His eyes and ears have been opened to its treasures, but...

Frances Wilson: Electric Spark - The Enigma of Muriel Spark...

How do you tell the story of a person’s mind? In the preface to Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark, published this year by...

Blu-ray: The Sons of Great Bear

Westerns had long been popular with German cinema audiences, some of the most successful being early 1960s West German adaptations of novels by...

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues review - comedy rock band f...

That difficult second documentary – or if you will, “rockumentary” – seems to have been especially challenging for...

Tosca, Welsh National Opera review - a great company reduced...

So it’s come to this: WNO’s autumn season reduced to two operas, a Tosca borrowed from Opera North and a revival of their own Candide...

Not Your Superwoman, Bush Theatre review - powerful tribute...

The Bush is likely to continue its fine recent run of hit plays, with this funny, poignant, culturally authentic and beautifully acted two-hander...