theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Jon Turney
Wednesday, 21 April 2021
Music and time each dwell inside the other. And the more you attend to musical sounds, the more complex their temporal entanglements become. Time structures music, rhythmically...
Veronica Lee
Wednesday, 21 April 2021
Oscar Wilde's fabulous play satirised Victorian England and contained a shedload of quotable quips. Now Yasmeen Khan has written an updated and uprooted version, set in the North...
Barney Harsent
Wednesday, 21 April 2021
When Laurence Binyon wrote: “Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn…” he was, of course, talking about the fallen soldiers of World War One, not...
Adam Sweeting
Tuesday, 20 April 2021
Dark family dramas set in unglamorous, unprosperous communities in the north-east of the USA have become a genre unto themselves. One thinks here of the work of writers such as...
Miranda Heggie
Tuesday, 20 April 2021
For their concert debut at St Martin-in-the-Fields, The Gesualdo Six brought a programme of English motets for the final instalment in the venue's trio of Easter concerts. Having...
Graham Fuller
Tuesday, 20 April 2021
There are moments in Straight Shooting (1917), the first feature directed by John (then "Jack") Ford, when its star Harry Carey (1878-1947) exudes a naturalism that the famous...
Tom Birchenough
Monday, 19 April 2021
There’s such a genial feel to the pairing of Oliver Ford Davies and Stephen Boxer in Ben Brown’s new play that there are...
Jasper Rees
Monday, 19 April 2021
Each generation is given an actress who can do everything – be intimate with the camera but also coat a back wall in honey...
Adam Sweeting
Monday, 19 April 2021
After winning a couple of Baftas, and with five nominations at next week’s Oscars, Promising Young Woman comes surging in on...
Kieron Tyler
Monday, 19 April 2021
Although it is not solipsistic, Flat White Moon is Field Music’s most personal, most revealing, warmest-sounding album so...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 18 April 2021
It'll All Work Out In Boomland was issued by Decca at the end of July 1970. A poor seller at the time, it began attracting...
Mark Kidel
Saturday, 17 April 2021
Toumani Diabate, master of the 21-string kora, along with some other Malian musicians, collaborated on a symphonic concert...
Jenny Gilbert
Friday, 16 April 2021
Like the British high street, the once richly diverse landscape of dance in the UK is likely to look very different once...
Veronica Lee
Friday, 16 April 2021
On first sight, Citizen Lane's appeal may seem limited to those with an Irish connection or an interest in fine art. But...
Robert Beale
Friday, 16 April 2021
Sir Mark Elder is back with the Hallé for the latest (and penultimate) filmed concert in their “Winter Season” of 2020 and...
Joe Muggs
Friday, 16 April 2021
AJ Tracey is one of Brit rap’s aristocracy now. Along with the likes of Stormzy, Dave, J Hus and lately Headie One, he is...
Boyd Tonkin
Thursday, 15 April 2021
The Southbank Centre automatically stuck the trusty “Bohemian Rhapsodies” headline on this London Philharmonic Orchestra...
Markie Robson-Scott
Thursday, 15 April 2021
On the 30th floor of a Tokyo apartment building, a charming little boy brushes his teeth, watched over by his smiling mother...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 15 April 2021
As Line of Duty aficionados debate the identity of H and wonder who DCI Joanne Davidson shares her DNA with, this new three-...
disc of the day
Album: Dinosaur Jr - Sweep It Into Space
Amherst's favourite grunge sons serve up another near flawless album
tv
Mare of Easttown, Sky Atlantic review - Kate Winslet shines in finely-drawn Pennsylvania mystery
Tangled secrets in a dirty old town
Helen McCrory: 'If there's one interesting thing about acting it's trying to lose your ego'
Three encounters with the great actor who has died at the age of 52
Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty, BBC Two review - when crime paid handsomely for corrupt officers
Astounding history of how the Met went rotten from within
film
Blu-ray: Straight Shooting / Hell Bent
Two John Ford Westerns starring Harry Carey, progenitor of true grit
Helen McCrory: 'If there's one interesting thing about acting it's trying to lose your ego'
Three encounters with the great actor who has died at the age of 52
Promising Young Woman, Sky Cinema review - Emerald Fennell's brilliant directorial debut
Carey Mulligan scintillates in Oscar-nominated romcom-noir
new music
Album: Dinosaur Jr - Sweep It Into Space
Amherst's favourite grunge sons serve up another near flawless album
Reissue CDs Weekly: T2 - It'll All Work Out In Boomland
Atmospheric prog-rock gem from 1970 gets the multi-disc treatment
classical
The Gesualdo Six, St Martin-in-the-Fields online review - perfectly polished polyphony
Six (and seven) sing six English Renaissance motets
Hough, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester online review - brassy, bouncy optimism
World premiere of Huw Watkins’ Second Symphony in filmed performance
Isserlis, LPO, Elder, Southbank Centre online review – songs of life and death
Lesser-known Czech passions preface a beloved old favourite
opera
The Seven Deadly Sins / Mahagonny Songspiel, Royal Opera online - modern morality tales mesh uneasily
More time needed in knocking this fascinating Brecht/Weill double bill into shape
L'heure espagnole, Grange Park Opera online review - seduction and sandwiches in 60 minutes
Ravel takes a Kensington lunchbreak, in an operatic updating for the YouTube generation
Siegfried, Göteborg Opera online review - a hero for our times
Staging and singing in sync for the Ring’s scherzo
theatre
The Importance of Being Earnest online review - Oscar Wilde updated for the Nando's generation
Yasmeen Khan's spoof has a big heart
A Splinter of Ice, Original Theatre Company online review - Graham Greene and Kim Philby are friends reunited
Affectionate aplomb from Oliver Ford Davies and Stephen Boxer in Ben Brown's new play
Helen McCrory: 'If there's one interesting thing about acting it's trying to lose your ego'
Three encounters with the great actor who has died at the age of 52
dance
The Royal Ballet - variations on a comeback
How one major ballet company survived to dance another day
The Nutcracker: an end-of-year obituary
It's been a rough ride for the seasonal cash cow. Here's how ballet companies coped
comedy
Loyiso Gola, Netflix review - South African muses on race, religion and friendship
Reflections that make you stop and think
Working From Home online review - Johnny Vegas and Jason Byrne in a strong line-up
Livestreamed variety evening is terrific fun
Comedy podcasts round-up 4: plus a vodcast and some retro audio
Anniversary release for Fawlty Towers vinyl
Books
Michael Spitzer: The Musical Human review - charting our age-old relationship with music
The futility of capturing music with words shows in this beguiling attempt at “big history”
Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott: Failures of State review - a devastating exposé, slightly mistimed
Precipitous publication may mean this feat of research fails to make its mark
Polly Barton: Fifty Sounds review - what is lost in translation
How to understand a language if you don't understand yourself
visual arts
This is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist, Netflix - the last word (for now)
Three decades on and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum mystery is still hot
Prix Pictet: Confinement review - a year in photographs
Prize-winning photographers respond to the pandemic
Pioneering Women, Oxford Ceramics Gallery online review - domestic pleasures
A survey of female potters explores ancient ubiquity and the allure of pure form
latest comments
If I may jump in here, Reich and Adams. Both took...
What would you suggest for a novice to this kind...
You seem to have completely missed the whole...
Hi, Love the review. great album and fantastic...
Just a couple of things. Although Keith Cross is...
The most sexually explicit song without a word...
just a wonderful watch. captivating, you become...