theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Ismene Brown
Saturday, 16 October 2021
The cherry orchard in Anton Chekhov’s eponymous play is a classic MacGuffin, its existence a reason to stir the sorts of resentments, fancies and identity causes that start wars...
Graham Rickson
Friday, 15 October 2021
Leo Sowerby: Paul Whiteman Commissions & other early works Andy Baker Orchestra, Avalon String Quartet (Cedille)Chicago’s Leo Sowerby (1895-1968) is remembered chiefly...
Aleks Sierz
Friday, 15 October 2021
Remembering the months of lockdown, I can’t be the only person to thrill to this play’s opening lines, “When shall we three meet again?”, a phrase evocative enough to be borrowed...
Thomas H Green
Friday, 15 October 2021
There is a three song segment midway through Manic Street Preachers’ set which suddenly ramps everything up. For this brief while, the performance and response in the sold-out,...
David Nice
Friday, 15 October 2021
Returning to LSO St Luke’s, formerly a beacon in the darkness of semi-lockdown for the lucky few allowed to feast upon the London Symphony Orchestra from the gallery, felt the...
Matt Wolf
Friday, 15 October 2021
"I can't sleep": So goes the fateful opening line of White Noise, the Suzan-Lori Parks play disturbing enough to spark many a restless night in playgoers who are prepared to take...
Nick Hasted
Friday, 15 October 2021
Chris Martin has talked, not for the first time, of this finally being the Coldplay era of “no rules or fear”. Swedish pop...
Joe Muggs
Thursday, 14 October 2021
This record is a heck of a metatextual experience to listen to. In releasing his debut album, 24 year old Finneas O’Connell...
Jenny Gilbert
Wednesday, 13 October 2021
Two households, both alike in dignity … and both launching their respective seasons with a production of Kenneth MacMillan’s...
Jonathan Geddes
Wednesday, 13 October 2021
Time waits for no band, as Maximo Park’s lively singer Paul Smith opined early into his band’s set. “I am young and I am...
Miranda Heggie
Wednesday, 13 October 2021
With a few extra dates to her rescheduled UK tour, Scottish folk legend Karine Polwart returned to Birmingham Town Hall with...
Boyd Tonkin
Wednesday, 13 October 2021
Outside Wales – even, perhaps, within it – few students will have run across the verse of Gwerful Mechain. The free-spirited...
Rachel O'Riordan
Wednesday, 13 October 2021
The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a vicious, sad and extraordinary play. On the surface, Martin McDonagh's play, first seen 25...
Liz Thomson
Wednesday, 13 October 2021
Oh boy, there’s nothing like slipping on an old pair of jeans and cowboy boots. That’s the comfy feeling you get from the...
Boyd Tonkin
Tuesday, 12 October 2021
If it ain’t broke… on tour and in the Glyndebourne summer festival, Mariame Clément's production of Don Pasquale has...
Saskia Baron
Tuesday, 12 October 2021
Todd Haynes’ documentary about the Velvet Underground has to be one of the better uses of time by a film-maker during the...
Anna Parker
Tuesday, 12 October 2021
Marcin Wicha’s mother Joanna never talked about her death. A Jewish counsellor based in an office built on top of the rubble...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 12 October 2021
Mariya Saakyan’s 2006 debut feature is bookended by grainy footage of what looks like a fire-ravaged diary, the distressed,...
Markie Robson-Scott
Monday, 11 October 2021
It’s Christmas 1971 in New Prospect, a suburb of Chicago, and pastor Russ Hildebrandt has plans for time alone with Frances...
tv
DVD/Blu-ray: Maigret - The Complete Series
Entertaining, idiomatic Simenon adaptation, brilliantly cast
Thomas Hardy: Fate, Exclusion and Tragedy, Sky Arts review – too much and not enough
Programme does its best to shine a light on the bleak Wessex writer
Schumacher, Netflix review - authorised version of the life of an F1 legend
Portrait of German race ace doesn't dig deep enough
film
The Velvet Underground review - Todd Haynes tunnels through band history
Ingeniously composed documentary portrait, with John Cale the definitive star
Gabriela Montero, Kings Place review - improvising to a Chaplin classic is the icing on a zesty cake
Grabbing the audience and never letting go at the start of the London Piano Festival
new music
Manic Street Preachers, Brighton Dome review - solid gig occasionally explodes to another level
Politically literate Welsh pop-rockers still have fire in their bellies
Album: Finneas - Optimist
Brother and collaborator of one of the biggest stars on earth steps out on his own
classical
Classical CDs: Rediscovered orchestral jazz, natural trumpets and non-seasonal chamber music
An American original, zesty classical quartets and new music for piano
Tamestit, LSO, Ticciati, LSO St Luke's review - viola as chameleon, palpitating Brahms
Razor-sharp Walton complements an airborne, detailed account of a great symphony
Two-Piano Gala, Kings Place review - five pianists, two pianos, too many pieces
Captivating Mozart and Schubert offset by note-heavy Ravel and Rachmaninov
opera
Don Pasquale, Glyndebourne Tour review - winning comeback for a sturdy veteran
Sweet spots abound in Donizetti's much-loved sugar-daddy romp
First Person: director Frederic Wake-Walker on Glyndebourne's new 'Fidelio'
Tracing the problems of staging Beethoven's only opera over five years
Jenůfa, Royal Opera review - Janáček scours the soul again in a compelling new take
Equality of greatness from Asmik Grigorian and Karita Mattila in a striking context
theatre
The Cherry Orchard, Windsor Theatre Royal, review - Tolstoy meets Mrs Two Soups
Ian McKellen's scene-stealing is not the only reason to see Chekhov's comedy
Macbeth, Almeida Theatre review – vivid, but much too long
Saoirse Ronan makes her UK stage debut in Yaël Farber’s testosterone-fest
White Noise, Bridge Theatre review - provocative if not always plausible
Suzan-Lori Parks has tweaked her Off Broadway play to mixed results
dance
Romeo and Juliet, Birmingham Royal Ballet & Royal Ballet review - a storming start to the season
Half a century on MacMillan's R&J is still the business
The Midnight Bell, New Adventures, Sadler's Wells review - dance theatre at its most compelling
Matthew Bourne hits his stride in an engrossing picture of lovelessness in 1930s London
RIP dancer and photographer Colin Jones - obituary
Dubbed the George Orwell of photojournalism, Jones married Lynn Seymour
comedy
Jason Manford, London Palladium review - lockdown laughs and feelgood fun
Worth the wait for this Covid-affected tour
Blithe Spirit, Harold Pinter Theatre review - an amusing, if dated, revival of the Coward classic
Jennifer Saunders delivers a fine turn as the celebrated Madame Arcati
Anuvab Pal, Soho Theatre review - Empire and Bollywood collide
Shaggy dog story with some history thrown in
Books
Mary Wellesley: Hidden Hands review - passion in the parchment
Medieval manuscripts and their forgotten artist-authors come to life
Marcin Wicha: Things I Didn’t Throw Out review - the stories told by stacks of stuff
Connecting a mother's helpless love of things with questions of presence and personhood
Jonathan Franzen: Crossroads review - can goodness ever be its own reward?
The first volume of Franzen's new family saga leaves you wanting more
visual arts
Yoko Ono, Mend Piece, Whitechapel Gallery review – funny and sad in equal measure
A sign of the times in broken crockery
Theaster Gates - A Clay Sermon, Whitechapel Gallery review - mud, mud, glorious mud
Ceramics as a religion and a way of life
Isamu Noguchi, Barbican review – the most elegant exhibition in town
A restless spirit who infiltrated many of our lives
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