reviews

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support

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 response to our appeal to help us relaunch and reboot has been something else.

The Cage, BBC One review - a twisty casino caper with a brain and a big heart

Helen Hawkins |

The writer of the edgy TV drama The Responder, Tony Schumacher, is back with an equally edgy but surprisingly warm-hearted story of people down on their luck in Liverpool. On paper, The Cage sounds like another run-through of the clichés of casino dramas, but it regularly confounds expectations.

Supersonic Festival 2026, Birmingham review - pared back celebration of musical outsiders still has plenty of gold

Guy Oddy
It is almost without fail that Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival is guaranteed to be one of my annual musical highlights – and despite it still only…

Scott Bennett, Touring review - Everyman at large

Veronica Lee
Scott Bennett is a busy guy at the moment, touring as he is with not one, but two shows; Blood Sugar Baby, a personal piece of storytelling about a…

Firewing, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs review - potentially touching debut doesn’t quite ignite

Helen Hawkins
David Pearson’s debut play, Firewing, part of Hampstead Theatre’s INSPIRE project for emerging writers, is a heartfelt two-hander about the…

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?

Apollo's Fire, Sorrell, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - glorious harmony from Venice to Jerusalem

Boyd Tonkin
Uplifting celebrations of musical kinship across cultures

Michael review - never minding Neverland

James Saynor
A sleaze-free celebration of Michael Jackson before the fall

Kim, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - scary, dark, beautiful and big

Robert Beale
Romantic cornerstones shine alongside Julia Wolfe’s document of trauma

Wozzeck, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - harrowing tale told in brutal-tender music and thousands of photographs

David Nice
Berg's queasy setting of a visionary play as you never quite heard or saw it before

Rose of Nevada review - ghosts of Cornish community

Nick Hasted
A fishing boat falls through time in Mark Jenkin's immersive, haunted tale

Music Reissues Weekly: Jon Lucien - Search For The Inner Self

Kieron Tyler
Soul treasures from 1969 are made easily available for the first time

Please Please Me, Kiln Theatre review - too much, and not enough

aleks.sierz
Life of Brian Epstein explored in new play which never really satisfies

The Art of Fugue, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Circa, QEH review - an inspiring combination of Bach and acrobatics

Rachel Halliburton
Circa's acrobatics bracingly express a philosophical idea of the body

Big Thief, 02 Academy, Brixton review - an evening of understated radiance

Katie Colombus
The Brooklyn four prove less is more

Osborne, Lartigau, RPO, Petrenko, RFH review - orchestral classic ruined by a tiresome film

Bernard Hughes
Messiaen’s 'Turangalîla' well played, but overwhelmed by a trivialising animation

Olivia Dean, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - pop's new star has a slow start but euphoric finish

Jonathan Geddes
The singer has gone from tiny clubs to arenas in just three years

Altstaedt, Várjon, Hallé, Adès, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - the Unanswered Question answered?

Robert Beale
A scenic journey through 20th and 21st century landscapes

Between the River and the Sea, Royal Court review - wry take on insoluble antagonisms

aleks.sierz
Autobiographical show about the Middle East prefers utopian longing to political engagement

Kraggerud, Irish Chamber Orchestra, RIAM, Dublin review - Mozart and movement

David Nice
Fiddly but felt, the interpretations of the ICO's Norwegian violinist-director always compel

In the Print, King's Head Theatre - a moment that changed the newspaper industry for ever

Rachel Halliburton
A spiky depiction of the struggle between trade union leader Brenda Dean and Rupert Murdoch

Mint, BBC One review - when crime families collide

Adam Sweeting
Charlotte Regan's genre-jumping drama defies categorisation

The Dream of Gerontius, LSO and Chorus, Pappano, Barbican review - drama beyond belief

Boyd Tonkin
Tenderness, and terror, outshine majesty in Elgar's journey of the soul

Jasper Høiby's 3Elements, Bristol Beacon review - incandescent jazz conversation

Mark Kidel
Brilliant trio seamlessly combine composition and improvisation

Bergerac, Season 2, U&Drama review - murder most tasteful, served sunny side up

Helen Hawkins
Well paced and excellently cast, this revival still needs more of a sense of danger

Láng, Bretz, BBCSSO, Chan, City Halls, Glasgow review - Bluebeard's Castle threatens and yearns

Simon Thompson
Love among the chills in Bartók’s House of Horrors

Avenue Q, Shaftesbury Theatre review - we need that puppet sex now, and the rest

Gary Naylor
Can it be as good as it was 20 years go? Of course it can!

Gerald Barry's Salome, NSO Ireland, Kuhn, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - funny-queasy genius

David Nice
Paradoxically both ordered and wild(e), with weird twists and superb performances

The Rite by Heart, Aurora Orchestra, Multitudes Festival, RFH - exhilarating display of changing rhythms and moods

Rachel Halliburton
This semi-dramatised evening was as illuminating as it was exhilarating

The Flying Dutchman, Welsh National Opera review - running, jumping and standing still

stephen.walsh
Lusty singing, plenty of space and not a sail in sight

the future of arts journalism

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing! 

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts…
The Cage, BBC One review - a twisty casino caper with a brain and a big heart
The writer of the edgy TV drama The Responder, Tony Schumacher, is back with an equally edgy but surprisingly warm-hearted story of people…
First Person: Pulitzer finalist Sarah Ruhl on theatrical intimacy sealed with a kiss
Perhaps fate led me inevitably to the theatre as a great love because my first kiss was in a scene study class when I was 14 years old. My…
Kacey Musgraves knocks it out of the trailer park with 'Middle of Nowhere'
I first saw country singer songwriter Kacey Musgraves perform at the Arts Club on Dover Street back in 2013 for the launch of her first…
Supersonic Festival 2026, Birmingham review - pared back celebration of musical outsiders still has plenty of gold
It is almost without fail that Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival is guaranteed to be one of my annual musical highlights – and despite it…
Scott Bennett, Touring review - Everyman at large
Scott Bennett is a busy guy at the moment, touring as he is with not one, but two shows; Blood Sugar Baby, a personal piece of storytelling…
Firewing, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs review - potentially touching debut doesn’t quite ignite
David Pearson’s debut play, Firewing, part of Hampstead Theatre’s INSPIRE project for emerging writers, is a heartfelt two-hander about the…
First Person: Flora Wilson Brown on bringing Virginia Woolf shimmeringly to the stage
How do you adapt a book like The Waves? A terrifying idea, and one I could not get out of my brain, from the moment the director Jùlia…
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Tahar Rahim on Sky Atlantic's 'Prisoner'
Sky Atlantic’s new thriller, Prisoner, is a tense and twisty story involving a sinister crime syndicate called Pegasus, whose boss is a…
Apollo's Fire, Sorrell, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - glorious harmony from Venice to Jerusalem
In the delirious and exhilarating Sephardic dance that finished their concert devoted to the Jewish, Muslim and Christian music of…