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theartsdesk |
We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts lovers and professionals alike – but the…
Boyd Tonkin |
Benvenuti a Napoli cries the huge corny poster of the blue bay and ominous Vesuvius that looms over Neil Irish’s sets for Così fan tutte. However, we’re no longer in the…
Mark Kidel |
To celebrate Miles Davis’s 100th anniversary this week, Fontana have released a “ Deluxe Re-issue” of one of the jazz giant’s best-known recordings, the soundtrack for Louis Malle…
Helen Hawkins |
With impeccable timing, the Orange Tree in Richmond has scheduled a one-act play that’s exactly what a beleaguered public needs: 75 minutes of mind-bendingly ludicrous physical…
James Saynor |
Steve Martin famously said that writing about music was like trying to dance architecture, so maybe making a movie about painting is like – I don’t know – trying to chant ceramics…
Robert Beale |
Kahchun Wong ended his second season as the Hallé’s principal conductor with a blockbuster – and one from what may be seen as his personal zone of expertise: Mahler’s Sixth…
Rachel Halliburton
The psychological masterstroke of this quietly devastating work is to portray it from the point of view of an elderly woman who is convinced that she should not be in an old…
Bernard Hughes
Yesterday I travelled through a sweltering London in shorts and sandals to go and hear Schubert’s Winterreise, about a bleak journey through a frozen landscape. It was quite the…
Gary Naylor
In a small Appalachian village, where people say “Y’all” and prospectors are still searching for silver in the mountains, Barbara Allen wants more than the humdrum life of a Trad…
Tim Cumming
There’s been quite a breadcrumb trail leading up to the release of Paul McCartney’s 20th solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane – a The Rest is History podcast recorded at Abbey…
David Nice
A libertine who deserves punishment makes a good/bad start when a male director decides he really has tried to rape Donna Anna, and doesn't just enjoy post-coital badinage with…
Gary Naylor
Just a flimsy music stand on the RSC’s biggest stage greets us. Sir Ken, no longstaff in hand as we might have expected, dons his coat, perhaps left over from Abanazar’s costuming…
alexandra.coghlan
“La bohème, Tosca, Butterfly: you just know where you are with them, don’t you?” If the bar-chat at the opening night of the Opera Holland Park 30th anniversary season was…
Ibi Keita
Admittedly, my journey into the strange world of IDM, electronica and ambient music has not been a complex one. Whilst finding Aphex Twin, Burial, Squarepusher and the other entry…
Thomas H. Green
Nottingham is broiling. With sun heat. And with humanity. The pubs overspill beyond the pavement, into the road, as hordes of Nottingham Forest fans prepare for the final game of…
Adam Sweeting
Screenwriter Neil Forsyth earned kudos a-plenty with his two BBC One series of The Gold, a dramatisation of the 1983 Brink’s-Mat bullion robbery and its aftermath. Now he’s…
Helen Hawkins
Maybe because we are aware now of too many cases of a paranoid schizophrenic suddenly unleashing violence on an innocent stranger, the teenager under treatment in Peter Schaffer’s…
Veronica Lee
Wanda Sykes is a comic, actress and writer who has written for Chris Rock and appeared in Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Good Fight and, more latterly, Netflix series The Upshaws.…
David Nice
Bellini's most consistently inspired opera, director Orpha Phelan tells us, has been set on a pedestal. Well, a pedestal would have been good for the titular Druid high priestess…
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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
Steve Coogan and Tom Burke lead a formidable cast in Neil Forsyth's drama
Gripping three-part saga is smarter than the average pop-doc
The latest helping of the Jilly Cooper adaptation is much like the first: sparky, filthy fun
film
When Lucian Freud and Kate Moss brushed up against each other
Influential and colourful Italian comic book adaptation returns in a gleaming new print
Steven Soderbergh directs Ian McKellan and Michaela Coel in virtuoso performances
new music
To mark the centenary of a jazz great, we explore a soundtrack that eclipsed the film
Tenderness abounds on this intimate, reflective set
Scottish duo turn up the creepy on new album
classical
Luxurious sonic experience and tonal beauties in a moving Mahler 6
Veteran American singer in fine voice, complemented by characterful accordion
Baroque keyboard music in new colours, a celebration of a great English composer and Russian fairytales
opera
High farce and explosive feeling collide in a Fifties Neapolitan romp
Quality in spades on a modest budget
A handsome staging of Puccini's gold-rush opera seems bound to win some converts
theatre
Peter Schaffer's 1965 hit is still the perfect vehicle for premium physical comedy
Alexander Zeldin's play is a deeply moving meditation on mortality
YA genre show needs more pace and character development to realise its potential
dance
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
A handsome production in need of a stronger score and deeper characterisation
A triptych of ambitious works by Wayne McGregor fails the sandwich test
comedy
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Comic revisits her alma mater to talk politics
Absurdist comic's most personal show yet
books
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Latest entry in BFI's Film Classics series offers fresh perspectives and media insights
Memoir of alcoholism is heavy on lacerating self-analysis but lighter on jokes
visual arts
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Her large sculpted butterflies act both as an inspiration and a warning
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