theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Tom Birchenough
Friday, 14 November 2025
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...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 15 August 2025
Ridley Scott’s original Alien movie from 1979 was an all-time sci-fi/horror classic, and even an endless stream of sequels and spin-offs – Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection,...
Markie Robson-Scott
Friday, 15 August 2025
“When have you ever gone off alone?” scoffs Magnus (Thomas W Gabrielsson) when his wife, Maria (Mirja Turestedt), expresses the wish to go to England rather than Morocco for their...
David Kettle
Friday, 15 August 2025
Kinder, Underbelly, Cowgate ★★★ Drag artist Goody Prostate (yes, I know) receives a call from a local library. Garbed in lederhosen and sporting a preposterous German accent...
Thomas H Green
Friday, 15 August 2025
Who’d have guessed that a dude who first came to attention a decade ago guesting on a cheesy Chase & Status drum & bass track would likely now be heading for his third...
Gary Naylor
Thursday, 14 August 2025
I have two guilty secrets about the theatre – okay, two I’m prepared to own up to right here, right now. I quite enjoy some jukebox musicals and I often prefer schools-oriented,...
Simon Thompson
Thursday, 14 August 2025
There’s a lot to shout about in this Orpheus, especially the way it looks. In a thin year for staged opera at the Edinburgh...
Veronica Lee
Thursday, 14 August 2025
Eric Rushton, Monkey Barrel ★★★★ Everything about Eric Rushton is lo-fi. His delivery, his movement about the...
David Kettle
Thursday, 14 August 2025
The Horse of Jenin, Pleasance Dome ★★★★★ Alaa Shehada bounds onto the stage, all muscular energy and swaggering self-...
James Saynor
Thursday, 14 August 2025
Andrew Garfield was 29 when he played the teenage Spiderman and Jennifer Grey was 27 when she took on a decade-younger-than-...
Tim Cumming
Thursday, 14 August 2025
Emma Smith, one time Puppini Sister, has established herself over the past decade or so as one of the UK’s most compelling...
Sebastian Scotney
Wednesday, 13 August 2025
You can't explain stage presence like Anoushka Shankar’s. It just "is". When she steps out in front of a completely packed...
Simon Thompson
Wednesday, 13 August 2025
Leonard Elschenbroich and Alexei Grynyuk crafted a fine programme for their EIF recital, centring around Brahms’...
David Kettle
Wednesday, 13 August 2025
The Fit Prince (who gets switched on the square in the frosty castle the night before (insert public holiday here)),...
Helen Hawkins
Wednesday, 13 August 2025
The Canadian-Korean director Celine Song burst onto the scene with her debut feature, Past Lives, two years ago, a...
Kieron Tyler
Wednesday, 13 August 2025
“I will fly around the world just to forget you” are the opening words of “It Hits Harder,” the first track on New...
Boyd Tonkin
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Water surged through this Prom from first spray to last drop. But there was nothing damp or diluted about Edward Gardner’s...
Pamela Jahn
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
The German actor Leonie Benesch has an issue with erratic pacing in films. "I find it awful when a character talks and then...
Justine Elias
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Before Freakier Friday there were the two film versions of Freaky Friday based on Mary Rodgers’s lively, perceptive 1972...
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disc of the day
Album: Tom Grennan - Everywhere I Went Led Me To Where I Didn't Want To Be
British pop star's fourth exhibits ultra-pop oomph with mixed results
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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
Alien: Earth, Disney+ review - was this interstellar journey really necessary?
Noah Hawley's lavish sci-fi series brings Ridley Scott's monster back home
The Count of Monte Cristo, U&Drama review - silly telly for the silly season
Umpteenth incarnation of the Alexandre Dumas novel is no better than it should be
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, BBC One review - love, death and hell on the Burma railway
Richard Flanagan's prize-winning novel becomes a gruelling TV series
film
Unmoored review - atmospheric Swedish noir set on Exmoor
Something nasty in the bunker: Caroline Ingvarsson's debut feature leaves us guessing
Materialists review - a misfiring romcom or an undercooked satire?
Writer-director Celine Song's latest can't decide what kind of film it is
new music
Album: Tom Grennan - Everywhere I Went Led Me To Where I Didn't Want To Be
British pop star's fourth exhibits ultra-pop oomph with mixed results
Album: Emma Smith - Bitter Orange
The award-winning jazz singer brings new life to some classic standards
BBC Proms: Anoushka Shankar 'Chapters' review - somehow, it worked
Shankar's starry presence brings focus to this orchestral version
classical
Elschenbroich, Grynyuk / Fibonacci Quartet, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - mahogany Brahms and explosive Janáček
String partnerships demonstrate brilliant listening as well as first rate playing
BBC Proms: Akhmetshina, LPO, Gardner review - liquid luxuries
First-class service on an ocean-going programme
theartsdesk in Kovachevitsa - top Bulgarians and friends make peerless music in a remote village
Four big concerts of hugely varied chamber works in the Rhodope mountains
opera
Orpheus and Eurydice, Opera Queensland/SCO, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - dazzling, but distracting
Eye-popping acrobatics don’t always assist in Gluck’s quest for operatic truth
MARS, Irish National Opera review - silly space oddity with fun stretches
Cast, orchestra and production give Jennifer Walshe’s bold collage their all
Káťa Kabanová, Glyndebourne review - emotional concentration in a salle modulable
Janáček superbly done through or in spite of the symbolism
theatre
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Kinder / Shunga Alert / Clean Your Plate!
From drag to Japanese erotica via a French cookery show, three of the Fringe's more unusual offerings
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, RSC, Stratford review - not quite the intended gateway drug to Shakespeare
Shakespeare trying out lots of ideas that were to bear fruit in the future
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: The Horse of Jenin / Nowhere
Two powerful shows consider the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with mixed results
dance
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby, Rambert, Sadler's Wells review - exciting dancing, if you can see it
Six TV series reduced to 100 minutes' dance time doesn't quite compute
Giselle, National Ballet of Japan review - return of a classic, refreshed and impeccably danced
First visit by Miyako Yoshida's company leaves you wanting more
comedy
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Eric Rushton / Bella Hull
Depression laid bare & a relationship decoded
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Lily Blumkin / Shamik Chakrabarti
A life in several characters & a Mumbai shaggy-dog story
Books
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Natalia Ginzburg: The City and the House review - a dying art
Dick Davis renders this analogue love-letter in polyphonic English
Tom Raworth: Cancer review - truthfulness
A 'lost' book reconfirms Raworth’s legacy as one of the great lyric poets
visual arts
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Folkestone Triennial 2025 - landscape, seascape, art lovers' escape
Locally rooted festival brings home many but not all global concerns
Sir Brian Clarke (1953-2025) - a personal tribute
Remembering an artist with a gift for the transcendent
latest comments
Tom is a conductor, not a composer, as I...
The actor playing Dan is Jyuddah Jaymes not...
I've seen this production, the singing was...
"Certainly the visceral excitement of the piece...
The whole review is strange and lazy. ...
Yes, that was a horrible comment in so many ways...
Let me fix some incorrect information here. ...
Myrtha is different on the first night and the...