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Theartsdesk
Sunday, 01 December 2024
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...
Kieron Tyler
Wednesday, 27 November 2024
A sycamore tree is described to an appaloosa horse before it is mounted to ride off to visit a friend. The thread used for sewing evokes a map where each street has a doorway...
Justine Elias
Tuesday, 26 November 2024
From James I’s campaign to wipe out witchery to the feuding sister sorceresses of The Wizard of Oz and the new film musical Wicked, spellcasting by supposedly wayward women...
Sebastian Scotney
Tuesday, 26 November 2024
Jazz music crosses, mixes and unites generations, and the 10 concerts I’ve seen at this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival (out of more than 300 in total) have really brought that...
Sam Amidon
Monday, 25 November 2024
Walking in the morning from my Airbnb along the road in West Kerry, a seven-minute walk with ocean on one side and farmland on the other, down to the Teaċ Daṁsa workshop space. I...
Tim Cumming
Monday, 25 November 2024
November can be a month to hunker down for the onset of winter and its weather, and where better to do that than in one of the myriad venues across the capital hosting the annual...
Gary Naylor
Monday, 25 November 2024
"All’s well that ends well". Sounds like the kind of phrase a guilty parent says to a disappointed child after they’ve been...
Rachel Halliburton
Monday, 25 November 2024
There were points when this concert felt like the musical equivalent of watching the atom split – as well as notes there...
Thomas H Green
Monday, 25 November 2024
What’s to be said about an album that’s half well-executed body-moving, dancefloor pop and half sickly, slick schmaltz? It’s...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 24 November 2024
For most of Canada’s listening public, their country-man Stefan Gnyś – pronounced G'neesh – wasn’t a concern. The 300 copies...
Matt Wolf
Saturday, 23 November 2024
"No one mourns the wicked," we're told during the immediately arresting beginning to Wicked, which concludes two hours 40...
Jenny Gilbert
Saturday, 23 November 2024
London-born Akram Khan has come a long way in a 35-year career. He performed as a young teen in Peter Brook’s production of...
Sarah Kent
Saturday, 23 November 2024
Pema Tseden's final film Snow Leopard is a Chinese Tibetan-language drama that addresses wild animal preservation. It serves...
Gary Naylor
Saturday, 23 November 2024
Cleveland is probably the American city most like the one in which I grew up. Early into the icy embrace of post-...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 23 November 2024
Brahms: Piano Concertos 1 and 2, Solo piano works Igor Levit (piano), Wiener Philharmoniker/Christian Thielemann (Sony...
Joe Muggs
Saturday, 23 November 2024
The progress of Kim Deal has been one of the great delights of modern music. Much as one wishes Pixies well, they have never...
David Nice
Friday, 22 November 2024
From a privileged position in the Festival Hall stalls, I could see 97-year old Herbert Blomstedt’s near-immobile back as he...
Thomas H Green
Friday, 22 November 2024
London-based singer-songwriter Hannah Scott has warned her next song may reduce us to tears. It is, she says, inspired by...
Aleks Sierz
Friday, 22 November 2024
This Dickens classic is an annual treat, or a Christmas trial – depending on your point of view. At the Old Vic, it was...
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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
Paris Has Fallen, Prime Video review - Afghan war veteran wreaks a terrible vengeance
Cynical politicians and amoral arms dealers feel the heat
Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, BBC One review - handsome finale for Hilary Mantel adaptation
Mark Rylance is on top form as his Thomas Cromwell re-emerges after nine years
The Day of the Jackal, Sky Atlantic review - Frederick Forsyth's assassin gets a modern-day makeover
Eddie Redmayne shoots to kill in lavish 10-part drama
film
Witches review - beyond the broomstick, the cat, and the pointy hat
A documentary probes the links between stigmatised women and postpartum depression
Wicked review - overly busy if beautifully sung cliffhanger
Musical theatre behemoth becomes an outsized film - and this is just part one
Snow Leopard review - clunky visual effects mar a director's swansong
Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden bows out with a confusing tale of a beautiful predator
new music
Album: The Innocence Mission - Midwinter Swimmers
Allusive reflections prompted by experience and the commonplace
EFG London Jazz Festival round-up review - youth, age, and the greatness in between
From Xhosa Cole Monking Around to 87-year-old Kirk Lightsey
EFG London Jazz Festival 2024 round-up review - from Korean noise to Carnatic soul
A trio of bands and artists blend world music, cinematic grooves and pure noise at the London Jazz Festival
classical
Rajakesar, Selaocoe, The Hermes Experiment, Wigmore Hall review - a joyful, fascinating laboratory of noise
Celebrating the avant-garde through different cultures
Classical CDs: Vitamins, kings and magic spells
A neglected ballet score, romantic piano concertos and contemporary British music
Kavakos, Philharmonia, Blomstedt, RFH review - a supreme valediction forbidding mourning
Nonagenarian conductor provides the flow, his players the passion, in Mahler's Ninth
opera
The Elixir of Love, English National Opera review - a tale of two halves
Flat first act, livelier second, singers not always helped by conductor and director
The Sound Voice Project, Linbury Theatre review - an art installation that has strayed into an opera house
A worthy project fails to ignite as art
theatre
All's Well That Ends Well, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - Shakespeare at his least likeable
New production lands on shaky ground in 2024
Wicked review - overly busy if beautifully sung cliffhanger
Musical theatre behemoth becomes an outsized film - and this is just part one
King James, Hampstead Theatre review - UK premiere drains a three-pointer
LeBron James comes and goes, and comes back again to the Cavs
dance
First Person: singer-songwriter Sam Amidon on working in Dingle with Teaċ Daṁsa on 'Nobodaddy'
Michael Keegan-Dolan’s mind-boggling total work of art arrives at Sadlers Wells this week
Akram Khan, GIGENIS, Sadler’s Wells review - now 50, Khan returns to his roots
The dancer-choreographer goes epic in a show that unites South Asian dance styles
comedy
Kemah Bob, Soho Theatre review - Thailand, massage and mental health
Texan's full-length debut is a personal story
Natalie Palamides: Weer, Soho Theatre review - a romcom of two halves
Comic plays male and female roles simultaneously
Books
Interview: rising star Chloe Savage on the Arctic, outer space, and igniting children's wonder for the unknown
Beautiful books take you to worlds that are intricately imagined and a feast for the eye
Jon Fosse: Morning and Evening review - after thoughts
Damion Searls thoughtfully translates the wise words of 2023’s Nobel Prize winner
visual arts
ARK: United States V by Laurie Anderson, Aviva Studios, Manchester review - a vessel for the thoughts and imaginings of a lifetime
Despite anticipating disaster, this mesmerising voyage is full of hope
Vanessa Bell, MK Gallery review - diving into and out of abstraction
A variation of styles as the Bloomsbury artist breaks free from Victorian mores
latest comments
Just fell on this series. Great cast, interesting...
She hooked us in at a minor festival on the...
A fabulous review and having followed Hannah for...
Did we see the same show? I was at the opening...
I felt exactly the same, I was sat facing the...
I admire your ability to interpret the lyrics,...
Excellent review, Mark! Makes me feel like I was...
Thanks for your appreciation of the concert and...