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Theartsdesk
Monday, 26 August 2019
There are films to meet every taste in theartsdesk's guide to the best movies currently on release. In our considered opinion, any of the titles below is well worth your attention...
Kieron Tyler
Monday, 26 August 2019
“This is our punk record,” says Ezra Furman of Twelve Nudes in its PR bumpf. In practice, the punk slant is manifested through distorted guitars, hell-for-leather tempi and...
Boyd Tonkin
Sunday, 25 August 2019
In the late 1950s, a photo technician from Salford suddenly became “the most famous teenager in Britain”. Shelagh Delaney was 19 when she sent the script of A Taste of Honey to...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 25 August 2019
Apparently, Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug Clifford’s snare drum broke during the first song of their set at Woodstock Festival. On the new double album Live at...
India Lewis
Sunday, 25 August 2019
Karl Marlantes’s Deep River is an all-American novel. And why should it not be? Marlantes is an all-American author. He grew up in small-town Oregon, attended Yale (and Oxford),...
Veronica Lee
Sunday, 25 August 2019
Jordan Brookes Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★Jordan Brookes doesn’t tell gags. Well, he does but not in a traditional stand-up way. Rather, his jokes are subtly inserted into I’ve...
Rachel Halliburton
Saturday, 24 August 2019
It may sound perverse to say it, but Albert was the perfect twenty-first century prince. Thrust into the heart of the...
Joseph Walsh
Saturday, 24 August 2019
As Penny Lane’s documentary shows, America and Satanism have a long history. From the Salem Witch trials to the moral panic...
Bernard Hughes
Saturday, 24 August 2019
After Thursday night’s concert I celebrated the Proms’ exploration of unfamiliar repertoire via the CBSO. The following...
Owen Richards
Saturday, 24 August 2019
There were some early warning signs that A Faithful Man might be another box-ticking French romcom. The poster of two women...
Miranda Heggie
Saturday, 24 August 2019
”Cunts Are Still”. Well, that got your attention, didn’t it? Not my words, merely the title of one of JARV IS’s new tracks....
Nick Hasted
Saturday, 24 August 2019
Guillermo del Toro considered directing this adaptation of Alvin Schwartz’s bestselling campfire tales, and his sensibility...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 24 August 2019
Bach: Keyboard Music Nils Anders Mortensen (piano) (Lawo Classics)There's so much to love about this Bach keyboard...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Saturday, 24 August 2019
If there's a central motif to the sprawling, 18-track opus that is Taylor Swift’s seventh release - and it’s an album that...
David Nice
Friday, 23 August 2019
Puccini's and Abbé Prévost's glitter-seduced Manon Lescaut might have been inclined to linger longer in the salon of dirty...
Tom Birchenough
Friday, 23 August 2019
You can’t fail to feel the ghosts in Appropriate: they are there in the very timbers of the ancient Southern plantation...
Bernard Hughes
Friday, 23 August 2019
Let us never tire of singing the praises of the Proms, nor ever take them for granted. For two months concerts, many of...
Thomas H Green
Friday, 23 August 2019
When Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin released the former’s stripped back, soul-bearing American Recordings in 1994 the impact was...
David Nice
Thursday, 22 August 2019
Love him or hate him, Lars von Trier has time and again made the unpalatable and the improbable real and shatteringly moving...
disc of the day
CD: Ezra Furman - Twelve Nudes
American maverick sells himself short by adopting a restrictive punk slant
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tv
Prince Albert: A Victorian Hero Revealed, Channel 4 review - dramatic documentary filled with intelligent detail
The privileged prince who was simultaneously an oppressed outsider
Power, politics and Peaky Blinders - the Shelby family return for Series 5
Steam-punk gangsters invade the corridors of Westminster
Bauhaus 100, BBC Four review - a well-made film about the makers
A fascinating centenary tale of God-like architects and punks
film
Hail Satan? review - the detail of the devil
Documentary reveals the comedy and politics of America's satanists
A Faithful Man review - an atypical romance
French romantic comedy that both follows and breaks the rules
new music
CD: Ezra Furman - Twelve Nudes
American maverick sells himself short by adopting a restrictive punk slant
Reissue CDs Weekly: Creedence Clearwater Revival - Live at Woodstock
Overdrive and relentlessness define the great American band’s 1969 festival appearance
Edinburgh International Festival 2019: JARV IS review - Britpop legend still delivers
Pulp frontman brings expertly crafted songs and a tight, talented band to Leith Theatre
classical
Prom 47: Schönheit, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Nelsons review - Bruckner doesn’t quite take flight
Ravishing sounds from thoroughbred Germans, undermined by sluggish tempos
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Christophersen, Mr McFall's Chamber
Baroque keyboard suites and Norwegian brass virtuosi. Plus penguins and a musical saw.
Edinburgh International Festival 2019: Bach's Multiple Concertos/ Manon Lescaut reviews - dancing harpsichords, perfect Puccini
A day of pleasure and pain crowned by Sondra Radvanovsky and Donald Runnicles
opera
Edinburgh International Festival 2019: Bach's Multiple Concertos/ Manon Lescaut reviews - dancing harpsichords, perfect Puccini
A day of pleasure and pain crowned by Sondra Radvanovsky and Donald Runnicles
Edinburgh International Festival 2019: Breaking the Waves, Scottish Opera/Opera Ventures review - great film makes a dodgy opera
Lars von Trier's terrifying Passion is reduced to another sacrificial-woman opera
Making new waves: Royce Vavrek on forging a libretto from Lars von Trier
Missy Mazzoli's collaborator on their new operatic version of 'Breaking the Waves'
theatre
Appropriate, Donmar Warehouse review - fraught family reunion blisteringly told
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s 2013 play is tensely dark, as well as very funny
The Doctor, Almeida Theatre review - Robert Icke's long goodbye
Juliet Stevenson is brilliant in an ethical debate that is both thrilling and challenging
Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: The Red/ Gone Full Havisham
More from the world's biggest and best arts festival
dance
Matthew Bourne's Romeo and Juliet, Sadler's Wells review - heart-stopping drama
The plot isn't perfect, but this bad romance still packs a punch
The Bright Stream, Bolshoi Ballet review - a gem of a comedy
Ratmansky and Shostakovich offer up old-fashioned fun with an undercurrent of sweetness
Spartacus, Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera House review - no other company could pull this off
Visiting Russians transform wooden material into muscular spectacle
comedy
Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Jordan Brookes/ Catherine Cohen
Dave's Edinburgh Comedy Awards winners
Edinburgh Fringe 2019 reviews: Alun Cochrane/ Sarah Keyworth/ Glenn Moore/ Sophie Duker
More from the world's biggest and best arts festival
Edinburgh Fringe 2019 review: Arabella Weir - Does My Mum Loom Big In This?
Fringe debut on her overbearing mother feels too polite to confront its own darkness
gaming
Rage 2 review – garish but great post-apocalyptic shooter
Challenge The Authority in this 'Mad Max on mushrooms' renegade romp
Win a Luxury Weekend for Two to Celebrate Brighton Festival!
An eclectic line-up spanning music, theatre, dance, visual art, film, comedy, literature and spoken word could be yours with boutique hotel and exquisite meals included
World War Z review - bloodthirsty fun with the zombie apocalypse
Chainsawing the brain-eaters as you battle against the tide of the undead
visual arts
Edinburgh Festival 2019 reviews: Below the Blanket / Samson Young: Real Music
Two Edinburgh shows meld music, sound and visual art to beguiling effect
Black Sabbath: 50 years, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery review – not heavy going
Half a century of metal is celebrated in Sabbath's home city
Helen Schjerfbeck, Royal Academy review - watchful absences and disappearing people
Retrospective of Finnish artist turns on mortality and absence
latest comments
Spot-on.
Bernard is on the money (if characteristically...
Thanks for your feedback Derek. I did acknowledge...
I don't understand why you take issue with the...
The audience displayed more patience than the...
Right on Mr Pine!
Awesome best band ever and I am a hardcore punk
But the Emperor is naked..!