theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Thomas H Green
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
VINYL OF THE MONTHHannah Scott Absence of Doubt (Fancourt Music)Sometimes a singer comes along who’s not stylistically my thing at all, but their voice has a quality that wrenches...
Helen Hawkins
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
It seems to be silly season for big-name directors. First, Coppola’s Megalopolis and Steve McQueen’s Blitz: why? Now Alfonso Cuarón’s Disclaimer: double why?What happens in the...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
František Vláčil’s Marketa Lazarová (1966) has been voted the best Czech film ever made, a visionary 13th century epic whose expense prompted its director to shoot the shorter,...
Robert Beale
Monday, 14 October 2024
Martin Duncan’s 2008 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream remains one of the best and funniest things Opera North has ever done – back now again (it was also seen in 2013-14),...
Veronica Lee
Monday, 14 October 2024
Rose Matafeo knows how to make an entrance, as she enters the stage with a choreographed dance. She's useless at ending things, she says – shows, relationships – so she's going to...
Boyd Tonkin
Monday, 14 October 2024
“Sero sed serio”: so runs the Salisbury family motto on the carved coat-of-arms in the lavishly panelled and painted Marble Hall of Hatfield House. “Late, but in earnest”. The...
Guy Oddy
Monday, 14 October 2024
MC5 were the original proto-punkers who led the charge against wafty hippy music in the late Sixties and early Seventies....
Aleks Sierz
Sunday, 13 October 2024
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is not only the first play by a black woman to premiere on Broadway, back in 1959,...
Nick Hasted
Sunday, 13 October 2024
A boy’s dead friend scratching at his first-floor window, Nosferatu-like vampire Barlow rearing up with heart attack shock…...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 13 October 2024
In 2022, Spritualized’s Jason Pierce described his musical goal as "trying to find somewhere between Arvo Pärt and The...
David Nice
Saturday, 12 October 2024
At first, you wonder if the peculiar voice of Henry James’s maybe unreliable narrator can be preserved in this production....
Adam Sweeting
Saturday, 12 October 2024
ConclaveDirector Edward Berger won an Oscar for his last feature, All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), but here he...
Sarah Kent
Saturday, 12 October 2024
“The ocean is our home… Even in my next life I will dive again,” says Geum Ok, one of a band of female divers from Jeju, a...
David Nice
Saturday, 12 October 2024
Most of us have been there: an impasse in a marriage, a bereavement in a dysfunctional family. Leonard Bernstein certainly...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 12 October 2024
Georges Prêtre plays Francis Poulenc (Erato)Georges Prêtre and Francis Poulenc’s working relationship began in 1959...
Tim Cumming
Saturday, 12 October 2024
Sweet Release opens up a landscape of redemption by riding the rails of a classic blues, the title track talking...
Lindsey Ferrentino
Friday, 11 October 2024
I turn 36 this year, while living in London and rehearsing my new play The Fear of 13 at the Donmar Warehouse. The cast...
Hugh Barnes
Friday, 11 October 2024
Unlike the controversial Netflix show Baby Reindeer, which challenges many of the same attitudes towards sexual harassment,...
Robert Beale
Friday, 11 October 2024
Of all the inventive and enterprising things Manchester Collective do, it’s most often been the playing of a string ensemble...
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disc of the day
Blu-ray: The Valley of the Bees
František Vláčil’s taut, intense medieval thriller is a classic of Czech cinema
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
Disclaimer, Apple TV+ review - a misfiring revenge saga from Alfonso Cuarón
Odd casting and weak scripting aren't a temptation to keep watching
Ludwig, BBC One review - entertaining spin on the brainy detective formula
David Mitchell is a perfect fit for this super-sleuth
The Hardacres, Channel 5 review - a fishy tale of upward mobility
Will everyday saga of Yorkshire folk strike a popular note?
film
Blu-ray: The Valley of the Bees
František Vláčil’s taut, intense medieval thriller is a classic of Czech cinema
Salem’s Lot review - listless King remake
King's small-town vampires suffer vicious edits amidst tantalising folk magic
The Last of the Sea Women review - a moving tale of feisty traditional divers
Eye-opening Korean doc about intrepid harvesters of the deep
new music
theartsdesk on Vinyl 86: Molly Tuttle, Depeche Mode, Pharoah Sanders, Seefeel, Hinds, Sofi Tukker and more
Britain's premier vinyl record reviews
classical
Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, Hatfield House review - musical dreams in marble halls
Stylish, agile playing in the grandest of frames
Classical CDs: Elephants, clocks and palindromes
A lovable French composer boxed up, plus discs of choral and chamber music
Kanga, Manchester Collective, Singh, RNCM Manchester review - string ensemble playing at its most rewarding
New classics introduced and a world premiere with a dark story
opera
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Opera North review - one of the best and funniest
Perspex and bubblewrap for a Sixties take on Britten's Shakespeare
The Turn of the Screw, English National Opera review - Jamesian ambiguities chillingly preserved
Pity and terror in Ailish Tynan’s anguished Governess and Isabella Bywater’s production
Trouble in Tahiti/A Quiet Place, Linbury Theatre review - top cast plays unhappy families
Mini-masterpiece and splashy sequel carried off with as much conviction as they can take
theatre
A Raisin in the Sun, Lyric Hammersmith review - of race and men
Lorraine Hansberry classic is both a historical gem and a play for today
First Person: Lindsey Ferrentino on the play that has led Adrien Brody to the London stage
The American dramatist on bringing 'The Fear of 13', and its Oscar-winning lead, to the Donmar
The Lehman Trilogy, Gillian Lynne Theatre review - three brothers, two crashes, one American Dream
Sensational stagecraft elevates familiar tale of immigrant success in the USA
dance
National Ballet of Canada, Sadler's Wells review - see this, and know what dance can do
Yet again, Crystal Pite proves herself a ferocious creative force, alongside fellow Canadian exports James Kudelka and Emma Portner
Nobodaddy, Teaċ Daṁsa, Dublin Theatre Festival review - supernatural song and dance odyssey
Michael Keegan-Dolan’s genius guides us through death, separation and loss
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Royal Ballet review - big, bold and ultimately brash
It may be box-office gold, but Christopher Wheeldon's adaptation fails to find a beating heart down the rabbit hole
comedy
Rose Matafeo, Arcola Theatre review - Starstruck star muses on love
Kiwi comic on dating, phone apps and Taylor Swift
Ellen DeGeneres, Netflix Special review - no mea culpa and few jokes
Former chatshow host’s bizarre take on cancellation
Joe Rogan, Netflix Special review - US podcaster leaves the controversy - and the jokes - at home
Nothing edgy about this hour
Books
Stevie Smith: Not Waving But Drowning review - riding the wave
This slim and stylish new edition can't quite dispel some lurking doubts
Ellen McWilliams: Resting Places - On Wounds, War and the Irish Revolution review - finding art in the inarticulable
A violent history finds a home in this impressionistic blend of literary criticism and memoir
Claire Messud: This Strange Eventful History review - home is where the heart was
A brutally honest and epic narrative follows a family doomed to wander the earth
visual arts
Lygia Clark: The I and the You, Sonia Boyce: An Awkward Relation, Whitechapel Gallery review - breaking boundaries
Two artists, 50 years apart, invite audience participation
Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit, Tate Modern review - adolescent angst indefinitely extended
The artist who refused to grow up
Monet and London, Courtauld Gallery review - utterly sublime smog
Never has pollution looked so compellingly beautiful
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