theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
disc of the day
Album: Imagine Dragons - Mercury - Act 2
The Vegas pop-rockers start brightly, but soon fade on their overlong sequel
tv

Peter Kosminsky's drama probes the secret world of GCHQ's techno-spooks

Rowan Atkinson's new comic character is no Blackadder

James Nesbitt returns as another troubled policeman with a dark back-story (and matching eyebrows)
film
Caleb Landry Jones in an extraordinary performance as a man-child without empathy

An outstanding debut by the Greek New Wave director Jacqueline Lentzou

Nothing much happens in Alice Diop's documentary portrait of the periphery
new music

Screaming feedback, howling vocals and a thumping beat suggest that rock’n’roll is still very much alive

The Vegas pop-rockers start brightly, but soon fade on their overlong sequel

The biggest, wildest, most extensive Glastonbury 2022 report of them all
classical

Chopin the modernist, Rzewski the electric in totally satisfying recital

His home city of Kharkiv in ruins, a great musician plays on

Edmund Finnis song cycle gets its launch with passion, anguish and consolation
opera

Lithe cast and conducting unfazed by over-egged production, at least until the bitter end

Gianandrea Noseda, Andreas Homoki and top cast dazzle in an unforgettable 'Rheingold'

The great singing actor on his best experiences - including Zurich Opera's new Ring
theatre

Art and race intersect to provocative effect

Roy Williams’s latest is a tribute to the children of the Windrush generation

Bravado support from a cantankerous Bill Pullman practically steals the show
dance

At last, the pan-African production of Bausch's landmark choreography arrives on the London stage

An explosive restaging of the original dance drama

Christopher Wheeldon's usual flair deserts him in his latest three-act story ballet
comedy

Former Sewing Bee host tells a complicated tale

An equal opportunities offender delivers a masterclass in meta comedy

Setting the world to rights, one joke at a time
Books

Beguiling stories of families, familiars, guns and red hair

How the separatist republic became lost in its nostalgia for a largely imaginary past

A sumptuous, subtle novel on darkness and hope
visual arts

In love and war: one of England's great watercolourists reappraised

The brilliance of an amateur photographer who was almost lost to the world

This wildly ambitious mega-exhibition unravels in spectacular style
latest comments
Thanks for calling out the implausibility. By the...
Writing for the show was inconsistent throughout...
I think William Hurt was a fabulously talented...
I attended the performance on 17 June and found...
stunning performance from Sidse and script from...
The “Palestinians” as you know them are a 1960’s...
THE MILK OF NIGHTMARES... or so it seems Having...
Aaron you are right to ask the question about Pat...