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Theartsdesk
Wednesday, 01 October 2025
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.It followed some hectic and intensive months when a disparate and eclectic...
Thomas H Green
Sunday, 08 June 2025
Marina Diamandis is a proper pop star, brilliantly full-on, off on her own thing. The Welsh singer is primarily known for success 10-15 years ago as Marina and the Diamonds, but...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 08 June 2025
“Forest and the Shore” by Keith Christmas is remarkable. In his essay for Gather In The Mushrooms, compiler, author and Saint Etienne member Bob Stanley says it is “as evocative...
Müller-Schott , RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, Edinburgh - spectacular Shostakovich to end the season
Simon Thompson
Saturday, 07 June 2025
There was a neat conjunction of commemorations to this concert, the most obvious one being the fact that that 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Dmitri Shostakovich,...
Sarah Kent
Saturday, 07 June 2025
Hamad Butt studied at Goldsmiths College at the same time as YBAs (Young British Artists) like Damien Hirst and Gillian Wearing; but whereas they would become household names so...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 07 June 2025
Antal Doráti in London: The Mercury Masters Vol. 1 (Decca Eloquence)A couple of recent YouTube videos show DG engineers hard at work remastering Karajan’s 1970s Bruckner and...
Tim Cumming
Saturday, 07 June 2025
When Van Morrison last released an album of original songs, during the Covid pandemic, it didn’t go down well. Indeed...
Nick Hasted
Friday, 06 June 2025
John Wick’s simple story of a man and his dog became a bonkers, baroque franchise in record time, converting Keanu Reeves’...
Harry Thorfinn-George
Friday, 06 June 2025
In 2022 I called caroline “perhaps the best band in the U.K” in my article about their debut, which I named my album of the...
Peter Culshaw
Friday, 06 June 2025
With WOMAD not happening this year, where could one go for a feast of global sounds? Fes in Morocco has been presenting its...
Guy Oddy
Friday, 06 June 2025
No-one needs to be living in Trump’s USA to be aware that governments never feel that it’s in their interest to prioritise...
Kathryn Reilly
Friday, 06 June 2025
While the Gallagher brothers scrabble around in the dirt for their rich pickings, an altogether more dignified experience is...
Markie Robson-Scott
Thursday, 05 June 2025
“Do you know the name of the propaganda minister of England, or America, or even Stalin? No. But Joseph Goebbels? Everyone...
Ibi Keita
Thursday, 05 June 2025
Turnstile’s NEVER ENOUGH is a vibrant, shape-shifting album that proves the Baltimore-based band is fully committed to...
Fiddler on the Roof, Barbican review - lean, muscular delivery ensures that every emotion rings true
Rachel Halliburton
Wednesday, 04 June 2025
It’s always a risk when a production changes venue. In the curious alchemy of live performance, no-one can be sure whether a...
Heather Neill
Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Terence Rattigan's rehabilitation – some might almost say deification – as a leading 20th century playwright is complete. As...
Joe Muggs
Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Little Simz clearly believes in meeting situations head on. Her sixth full-length album kicks off, in every sense of the...
Helen Hawkins
Tuesday, 03 June 2025
In 2012, the award-winning American writer Sarah Ruhl met a Yale playwriting student who became a special part of her life....
Mark Sheerin
Tuesday, 03 June 2025
Botanical forms, lurid and bright, now tower above a footpath on a moor otherwise famed for darkness and frankly terrible...
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disc of the day
Album: Marina - Princess of Power
Sixth album from L.A.-based Welsh singer is over-the-top but rife with pop gems
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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.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
tv
Dept. Q, Netflix review - Danish crime thriller finds a new home in Edinburgh
Matthew Goode stars as antisocial detective Carl Morck
The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone, BBC Two - boom and bust in the lingerie trade
Life in the fast lane with David Cameron's entrepreneurship tsar
Code of Silence, ITVX review - inventively presented reality of deaf people's experience
Rose Ayling-Ellis maps out her muffled world in a so-so heist caper
film
Goebbels and the Führer review - behind the scenes from the Nazi perpetrators' perspective
Joachim Lang's docudrama focuses on Goebbels as master of fake news
Blu-ray: Eclipse
The BFI has unearthed an unsettling 1977 thriller starring Tom Conti and Gay Hamilton
new music
Album: Marina - Princess of Power
Sixth album from L.A.-based Welsh singer is over-the-top but rife with pop gems
Music Reissues Weekly: Gather In The Mushrooms
Stylish, Saint Etienne-compiled, gateway into the world of acid folk
Album: Van Morrison - Remembering Now
As he approaches 80, a lush new set has an invigorated Van showing his mystical side
classical
Müller-Schott , RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, Edinburgh - spectacular Shostakovich to end the season
Brilliant orchestral results, while the cellist walks a tightrope in the Second Cello Concerto
Classical CDs: Cannons, culverts and mooching cattle
Box sets celebrating a pair of conductors, plus baroque vocal music and a beguiling bassoon anthology
Marwood, Crabb, Wigmore Hall review - tangos, laments and an ascending lark
Accordion virtuoso’s brilliant arrangements showcase the possibilities of the instrument
opera
La Straniera, Chelsea Opera Group, Barlow, Cadogan Hall review - diva power saves minor Bellini
Australian soprano Helena Dix is honoured by fine fellow singers, but not her conductor
The Queen of Spades, Garsington Opera review - sonorous gliding over a heart of darkness
Striking design and clear concept, but the intensity within comes and goes
theatre
Fiddler on the Roof, Barbican review - lean, muscular delivery ensures that every emotion rings true
This transfer from Regent's Park Open Air Theatre sustains its magic
In Praise of Love, Orange Tree Theatre review - subdued production of Rattigan's study of loving concealment
Unspoken emotion flows through this late work
Letters from Max, Hampstead Theatre review - inventively staged tale of two friends fighting loss with poetry
Sarah Ruhl turns her bond with a student into a lesson in how to love
dance
Ballet to Broadway: Wheeldon Works, Royal Ballet review - the impressive range and reach of Christopher Wheeldon's craft
The title says it: as dancemaker, as creative magnet, the man clearly works his socks off
The Forsythe Programme, English National Ballet review - brains, beauty and bravura
Once again the veteran choreographer and maverick William Forsythe raises ENB's game
comedy
Dara Ó Briain, Soho Theatre Walthamstow review - master storyteller spins a family yarn
Search for his birth father takes a few turns
Mr Swallow: Show Pony, Richmond Theatre review - magic tricks and mayhem
Nick Mohammed gives his creation's origin story
Books
Zsuzsanna Gahse: Mountainish review - seeking refuge
Notes on danger and dialogue in the shadow of the Swiss Alps
Patrick McGilligan: Woody Allen - A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham review - New York stories
Fair-minded Woody Allen biography covers all bases
visual arts
Hamad Butt: Apprehensions, Whitechapel Gallery review - cool, calm and potentially lethal
The YBA who didn’t have time to become a household name
Bradford City of Culture 2025 review - new magic conjured from past glories
City, mill and moor inspire the city's visual arts offering
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