thu 19/09/2024

theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews

Aleks Sierz
Thursday, 19 September 2024
British theatre has a proud heritage of science plays. From 1990s classics such as Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (1993) and Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen (1998) to more recent examples such...
Tim Cumming
Wednesday, 18 September 2024
Lighters at the ready, because here comes the flood. Drawn from 16-track tape, 1/4in reels and lo-fi sound board cassettes that are now a half century old, the 27 CDs of 431...
Thomas H Green
Wednesday, 18 September 2024
Real-life couple Graham Coxon and Rose-Elinor Dougall are both musicians of some profile in their own rights. The former, especially, for his work with Blur. Their band The Waeve...
Robert Beale
Tuesday, 17 September 2024
A little piece of musical history was made last night at Manchester Chamber Concerts Society’s season-opening concert. Two of the greatest pianists of their generation, who met at...
Boyd Tonkin
Monday, 16 September 2024
It takes stiff competition to outshine Yuja Wang, who last night at the Barbican complemented her spangled silver sheath with a disconcerting pair of shades. But the super-heroine...
Hugh Barnes
Monday, 16 September 2024
The taxi cab has become a recurring motif in modern Iranian cinema, perhaps because it approximates to a kind of dissident bubble within the authoritarian state, a public space...
David Nice
Monday, 16 September 2024
A happy, lucid and bright pianist, a forbidding Everest among piano sonatas: would Boris Giltburg follow a bewitching,...
Gary Naylor
Monday, 16 September 2024
We meet Joe first at the keys, singing a pretty good song, but we can hear the pain in the voice – but is that the...
Kathryn Reilly
Monday, 16 September 2024
You don’t need me to tell you that this particular law enforcer has served up yet another meaty helping of genius...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 15 September 2024
Although Dagenham’s Sean Buckley & The Breadcrumbs are less than a footnote in the story of beat boom-era Britain,...
Justine Elias
Saturday, 14 September 2024
The setting is the lively 1930s London theatre world, but any sense that The Critic will be a lighthearted thriller should...
Sarah Kent
Saturday, 14 September 2024
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers includes many of his best known pictures and, amazingly, it is the first exhibition the...
Gary Naylor
Saturday, 14 September 2024
One wonders what sitcom writers will do when supermarkets finally sweep the last corner shops away with nobody left old...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 14 September 2024
 Passage Secret – music by Bizet, Debussy, Fauré, Ravel, Aubert Ludmila Berlinskaya and Arthur Ancelle (piano duet) (...
Aleks Sierz
Saturday, 14 September 2024
Platonic love should be simple – basically you’re best mates. And without the complications of sex, what could go wrong...
Boyd Tonkin
Friday, 13 September 2024
Out of emergencies may come revelations. Sir András Schiff has broken his leg, and we wish him a super-speedy recovery. At...
Alexandra Coghlan
Friday, 13 September 2024
Hauntings, memories, echoes: Antonio Pappano has started his official tenure as chief conductor of the London Symphony...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 13 September 2024
Based on the novel by Elin Hilderbrand, The Perfect Couple is an expensively-dressed fable about a lavish wedding in...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 13 September 2024
Anyone who has seen Lee Miller’s photographs – those taken of her in the 1920s when she was a dazzling American beauty...

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SEAN BUCKLEY & THE BREADCRUMBS Dagenham mod-beat band’s first recording surfaces

★★★★★ FRANG, LSO, PAPPANO, BARBICAN A concerto performance to treasure

★ VAN GOGH: POETS & LOVERS, NATIONAL GALLERY Passions translated into paint

★★ LEE Shaky biopic of an iconic photographer

★★★ OUR COUNTRY'S GOOD, LYRIC HAMMERSMITH A lively but patchy revival

★★★★ THE REAL ONES, BUSH THEATRE Engrossing, enjoyable and quietly inspiring

CLASSICAL CDS French piano duets, a sung ballet plus two discs of viola music

★★★★ THE CRITIC Ian McKellen's vicious scribe terrorises the 1930s West End

disc of the day

Here comes the flood: Bob Dylan's 1974 Live Recordings

Night after night: Sony's latest gargantuan release from the vaults

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

The Perfect Couple, Netflix review - an inconvenient death ruins lavish Nantucket wedding

Liev Schreiber steals the show in adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand's novel

Kaos, Netflix review - playing fast and profuse with the Greek myths

A rainbow of acting talent, but too many ideas thrown into the labyrinth

film

My Favourite Cake review - woman, love, and freedom

A 70-year-old widow liberates herself in authoritarian Iran

The Critic review - beware the acid-tipped pen

Ian McKellen's vicious scribe terrorises the 1930s West End

Lee review - shaky biopic of an iconic photographer

Kate Winslet brings her long-nurtured Lee Miller passion project to the screen

new music

Here comes the flood: Bob Dylan's 1974 Live Recordings

Night after night: Sony's latest gargantuan release from the vaults

Album: The Waeve - City Lights

Second album from Blur-affiliated couple contains luscious moments

Album: Joan as Police Woman - Lemons, Limes and Orchids

A deep, delicious dive into the many facets of love by the master songwriter

classical

Donohoe, Roscoe, Stoller Hall, Manchester review - two great pianists celebrate 50 years

The special chemistry of two-piano duet, with virtuosity, humour and depth

Beethoven Sonata Cycle 1, Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - running the gamut

From the official first to the toughest – quite a launch for a series this pianist knows well

opera

Prom 68, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Garsington Opera review - eerie beauty sometimes faintly glittering

Strong cast and top orchestra project as best they can in a fine company's first Proms visit

La traviata, Royal Opera review - a charismatic soprano in a serviceable revival

Richard Eyre's classic production looks great but lacks fizz

Prom 52, Carmen, Glyndebourne Festival review - fine-tuning a masterpiece

No loss of vivid focus as the Albert Hall becomes Bar Lillas Pastia

theatre

The Lightest Element, Hampstead Theatre review - engrossing, but fragmentary
Slender new play about political and gender prejudice in 1950s American science
The Band Back Together, Arcola Theatre review - three is a dangerous number
The second album is still tough, even if you never recorded the first
Kim's Convenience, Riverside Studios review - KC and the sunshine vibe
The play that inspired a Netflix series is heartwarming, but needs more spice to bite

dance

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party, ZooNation, Linbury Theatre review - a joyous celebration of differentness

Kate Prince's hip hop take on Lewis Carroll is energetic, charming and moving by turns

Ballet Nights #006, Cadogan Hall review - a mixed bag of excellence

Gala enterprise, 12 months on, will be a stayer if it keeps up this level of excitement

theartsdesk Q&A: Nina Ananiashvili, founder of the State Ballet of Georgia

Bolshoi superstar who made her name in London returns with a new generation

comedy

Adam Sandler, Netflix Special - songs, silliness and deconstructing stand-up

The comic and director Josh Sadie have fun with the form

Blu-ray: Laurel and Hardy - The Silent Years

Always watchable, occasionally hysterical collection of silent shorts

Edinburgh Fringe 2024 review: Joe Kent-Walters

Spoof of old-school entertainment

Books

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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