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theartsdesk |
We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts lovers and professionals alike – but the…
Helen Hawkins |
Maybe because we are aware now of too many cases of a paranoid schizophrenic suddenly unleashing violence on an innocent stranger, the teenager under treatment in Peter Schaffer’s…
Veronica Lee |
Wanda Sykes is a comic, actress and writer who has written for Chris Rock and appeared in Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Good Fight and, more latterly, Netflix series The Upshaws.…
David Nice |
Bellini's most consistently inspired opera, director Orpha Phelan tells us, has been set on a pedestal. Well, a pedestal would have been good for the titular Druid high priestess…
Joe Muggs |
Talking about the demographic of audiences can put one on tricky ground. I once, for example, got into trouble for pointing out that Autechre’s crowd was 80-plus per cent middle…
Ellie Roberts |
For the majority of Turnover fans, listening to Down On Earth for the first time will be a rollercoaster. The highs are moments that resemble their 2015…
Matt Wolf
Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape had its world premiere in 1958, with Patrick Magee, at the Royal Court. That same venue happens to be the site of Gary Oldman's last stage appearance…
Kieron Tyler
Really Into Somethin' - Brit Girl Sounds and Styles 1962-1970 is an explicitly titled 89-track, three-CD clamshell box set. Take one of its terrific tracks at random:…
Adam Sweeting
Melbourne’s petite popstrel Kylie Minogue zoomed to superstardom in the late Eighties, with her celebrity from Aussie TV soap Neighbours helping to boost her spectacular recording…
graham.rickson
Bach: Goldberg Variations BWV 988 Asya Fateyeva (soprano/alto saxophones), Eckart Runge (cello) Andreas Borregaard (accordion) (Berlin Classics)
Image…
Tim Cumming
This may be Willie Nelson’s 79th solo studio album, and his 156th in all, but despite such prodigious and prolific writing, the Red Headed Stranger is still a minimalist in…
Boyd Tonkin
Literally the first masterpiece of the 20th century (premiered on 14 January 1900), Tosca has had to wait until the second quarter of the 21st to arrive on the Glyndebourne…
Helen Hawkins
Former Royal Ballet principal Federico Bonelli has brought his Northern Ballet company south in the latest of its trademark narrative ballets. His dancers are a huge credit to him…
Rachel Halliburton
It began with a Gothic funeral procession. A drum beat ominously as a line of figures with shabby black suits, whitened faces, and jagged mascara around hollow staring eyes walked…
Sebastian Scotney
“I tell people this is my first and last big band album,” says Helen Sung about Oracles. The Houston-born pianist received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2021, and that enabled her to…
David Nice
So polished and passionate are the 11 world-class players of Ensemble 360, pioneering music in the round in Sheffield and elsewhere for the past 21 years, that you'd be grateful…
Rachel Halliburton
This blistering account of Brecht’s classic – which he wrote in a white heat of fury as news reached him of Hitler’s invasion of Poland – pitches us headlong into the cynicism and…
Joe Muggs
There must have been something in the ether. Only last month, not knowing that they had a surprise album about to drop, I namechecked “groovy Wirral millennials The Coral” in…
David Nice
Are Oscar Wilde's plays comedies of manners or just mannered comedies? Can they be kept afloat for today's audiences if they stick more or less to the period setting (this one…
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Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
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tv
Gripping three-part saga is smarter than the average pop-doc
The latest helping of the Jilly Cooper adaptation is much like the first: sparky, filthy fun
The Tony Award-winning star talks female power, sexism and becoming more Scottish with age
film
Influential and colourful Italian comic book adaptation returns in a gleaming new print
Steven Soderbergh directs Ian McKellan and Michaela Coel in virtuoso performances
new music
A total deconstruction of pop-alternative dichotomies, and a 360° immersive overload
The band flirt with a return to their past but the spark never catches fire
Enviably consistent box set dedicated to female-sung British pop from 1962 to 1970
classical
Baroque keyboard music in new colours, a celebration of a great English composer and Russian fairytales
Stunning collaboration between actors and musicians typifies this bracing enterprise
Period instruments and voices recreate the glory of a historical investiture
opera
Five-star duets for two women elevate cramped production of patchy Bellini
The rebel diva finally comes to Sussex in splendour - and squalor
Darkly arresting Purcell sometimes grapples with too many ideas
theatre
Peter Schaffer’s 1973 hit can still pack a theatrical punch, but its ideas seem dated now
Oscar winner Gary Oldman returns to his stage roots
Michelle Terry proves how well she understands this venue's tricky chemistry
dance
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
A handsome production in need of a stronger score and deeper characterisation
A triptych of ambitious works by Wayne McGregor fails the sandwich test
comedy
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Comic revisits her alma mater to talk politics
Absurdist comic's most personal show yet
books
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Latest entry in BFI's Film Classics series offers fresh perspectives and media insights
Memoir of alcoholism is heavy on lacerating self-analysis but lighter on jokes
visual arts
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Her large sculpted butterflies act both as an inspiration and a warning
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