fri 18/10/2024

theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews

Helen Hawkins
Friday, 18 October 2024
John Webster’s sour, bloody tale of brotherly greed and vice has been updated by the playwright Zinnie Harris, who also directs her own text at the Trafalgar. The title has a...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 18 October 2024
QueerWilliam Burroughs’ eponymous novel was nearly filmed by Steve Buscemi in 2011, but it has finally reached the screen under the helmsmanship of Luca Guadagnino. It bombards...
Sebastian Scotney
Friday, 18 October 2024
Christian Gerhaher, the most compelling and complete interpreter of German Lieder of our time, makes no secret of the fact that – unlike his devotion to, say, Schumann – his...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 18 October 2024
An incendiary play has opened at the Marylebone, the adventurous venue just off Baker Street. Bigger houses were apparently unwilling to stage it, fearing anti-Israeli protests....
Gary Naylor
Friday, 18 October 2024
Straddling the USA Presidential elections, Simple8’s run of Land of the Free could not be better timed, teaching us an old lesson that wants continual learning - the more things...
Thomas H Green
Friday, 18 October 2024
Grandiloquent indie-synth-pop outfit Bastille have been around for over a decade. Three of their four albums have been chart-toppers (the other one still made Top 5 and went Gold...
Demetrios Matheou
Thursday, 17 October 2024
How many times does a politician survive wave after wave of attack from rivals, surf the waves of fickle voters and tiptoe...
Helen Hawkins
Thursday, 17 October 2024
For his latest pick’n’mix sortie into the world of the women’s picture, François Ozon has gone back to the 1930s and a...
Gary Naylor
Thursday, 17 October 2024
There’s a moment in writer/co-director, Jonathan Brown’s, gritty new play, Knife on the Table, that justifies its run almost...
Markie Robson-Scott
Thursday, 17 October 2024
“I knew he was risky, but like fuck it, everyone’s risky.” A young woman (Kelley Jakle) poses for pictures on a deserted...
Kieron Tyler
Thursday, 17 October 2024
Just before the five-minute point, a Mellotron’s distinctive string sound is heard. Three minutes earlier, a guitar evokes...
Alexandra Coghlan
Wednesday, 16 October 2024
A programme of less-loved siblings – Shostakovich’s gnarly Second Cello Concerto and Rachmaninov’s “not-the-Second” Symphony...
Hugh Barnes
Wednesday, 16 October 2024
Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, which set out in 1914 only to be marooned until August 1916,...
Rachel Halliburton
Wednesday, 16 October 2024
It’s not often that a classical music concert offers to take you beyond the stratosphere and back, but this intriguing...
Joe Muggs
Wednesday, 16 October 2024
Londoner Ayman Rostom has been around the block and then some. For some 25 years he’s been a hip hop producer as Dr Zygote,...
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...
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...
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...
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...

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★★★★ A RAISIN IN THE SUN, LYRIC HAMMERSMITH A historical gem and a play for today

★★★★ KANNEH-MASON, SINFONIA OF LONDON, WILSON, BARBICAN From musical also-rans to main event, culminating in a stunning Rachmaninov symphony

ARVO PÄRT - TABULA RASA A foundational album returns

★★★★★ BLU-RAY - THE VALLEY OF THE BEES František Vláčil’s classic of Czech cinema

★★★ MC5 - HEAVY LIFTING Partial final reformation by proto-punk greats is a mixed bag

★★★★★ THE TURN OF THE SCREW, ENO Jamesian ambiguities chillingly preserved

★★★★ ROSE MATAFEO, ARCOLA THEATRE Starstruck star muses on love

disc of the day

Album: Bastille - &

Dan Smith attempts to pare back to less bombast but doesn't always succeed

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

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

The Crime Is Mine review - entertaining froth from a crack cast

François Ozon keeps the mood light in a quasi-feminist period piece

Woman of the Hour, Netflix review - gripping drama follows a true-life Seventies serial killer

Anna Kendrick's powerful directorial debut focuses on Rodney Alcala's victims and the ones who got away

new music

Album: Bastille - &

Dan Smith attempts to pare back to less bombast but doesn't always succeed

Album: Elephant9 with Terje Rypdal - Catching Fire

Thrilling union of prodigious Norwegians

Album: Mystery Tiime - Maudlin Tales of Grief and Love

Cold, crisp, bleak reality in a sad set of post-punk sketches

classical

Christian Gerhaher, Gerold Huber, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford review - an unforgettable recital

The great German baritone in glorious voice at the Oxford International Song Festival

Kanneh-Mason, Sinfonia of London, Wilson, Barbican review - taking the roof off the Barbican

From musical also-rans to main event, culminating in a stunning Rachmaninov symphony

Music from Pole to Pole, Clark, City of London Sinfonia, Smith Square Hall review - talk of clouds, music to match

Inspired evening journeying from the Antarctic to the Arctic through patterns in the air

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

The Duchess [of Malfi], Trafalgar Theatre review - actors imprisoned by confused time travelling
Zinnie Harris's modern take robs the play of its tragic potential
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, Marylebone Theatre review - explosive play for today
Nathan Englander probes a divide in modern Jewish identity; Patrick Marber directs

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

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

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