theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Mark Kidel
Monday, 24 September 2018
Rod Stewart continues to hit the spot: he never fails to deliver well-crafted music that draws from the wide range of music from that he clearly loves. Apart from being a megastar...
Jasper Rees
Sunday, 23 September 2018
And breathe. Bodyguard – not, as even some careless BBC broadcasters keep calling it, "The Bodyguard" – careered to a conclusion as if hurtling around a booby-trapped assault...
Marina Vaizey
Sunday, 23 September 2018
Dip in, dip out, argue, agree and disagree: Living with the Gods is the newest manifestation of a rich multimedia format that keeps on giving, devised by that superb writer and...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 23 September 2018
In 2016, a writer from The Washington Post thought they had found Bobbie Gentry. After announcing their presence via the entry phone system of a gated housing development near...
Katherine Waters
Sunday, 23 September 2018
Iris is a museum conservator with a pair of pre-adolescent daughters and a failing marriage. Raif is a widower and an academic who, since writing a book on curiosity cabinets a...
Jasper Rees
Sunday, 23 September 2018
Chas Hodges has died at the age of 74, bringing to an end a career that reaches back to the very beginnings of British pop music. He was best known as one half of Chas and Dave....
Joe Muggs
Sunday, 23 September 2018
It may be mean to say, but it seems sadness agrees with Tim Hecker. The Canadian has been a mainstay of the global...
Jasper Rees
Saturday, 22 September 2018
Domnhall Gleeson needs to watch it. In Goodbye Christopher Robin he played AA Milne, the creator of Pooh and co. To achieve...
Owen Richards
Saturday, 22 September 2018
Why is M.I.A. such a problematic pop star? Why can't she just shut up and release a hit? Tellingly, this is the very...
Katherine Waters
Saturday, 22 September 2018
It’s the nature of satire to reflect what it mocks, so as you’d expect from a British Museum exhibition curated by Ian...
Tom Birchenough
Saturday, 22 September 2018
The end-of-season contemporary writing slot at the Globe must be a proposal as full of promise for playwrights as it is...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 22 September 2018
Bernstein: Wonderful Town Danielle de Niese, Alysha Umphress, Nathan Gunn, London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle...
Adam Sweeting
Saturday, 22 September 2018
Witches, vampires and magicke of all descriptions continue to be big box office, so Sky 1’s new dramatisation of the first...
Barney Harsent
Saturday, 22 September 2018
Mudhoney are a constant in a changing world. When they first burst into our consciousness 30 years ago, few would have put...
Mark Kidel
Friday, 21 September 2018
Henry V is a play shot through with martial energy and the terrible chaos of war. The almost overpowering violence and...
Veronica Lee
Friday, 21 September 2018
Katherine Ryan was making her West End debut – a big moment in any comic’s career – but she made her entrance on stage at...
Graham Rickson
Friday, 21 September 2018
Animation fans have rarely had it so good, though it’s nothing short of criminal that the mean-spirited, infantile Peter...
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tv
Bodyguard, BBC One, series finale review - gripping entertainment of the highest calibre
Was it the police, the government or MI5 who murdered Julia Montague? And was she really dead? CONTAINS SPOILERS
A Discovery of Witches, episode 2, Sky 1 review - when the sorceress met the vampire
Supernatural chills and thrills in TV version of the 'All Souls Trilogy'
James Graham: 'the country of Shakespeare no longer recognises arts as a core subject'
Full transcript of the playwright's passionate speech about the importance of the arts at the Hospital Club's h100 Awards
film
The Little Stranger review - the wrong sort of chills
Sarah Waters' haunted-house yarn from the maker of Room will leave you cold
Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. review - not your average popstar
From asylum-seeker to Grammy-winner, documentary reveals the activist behind the music
new music
Reissue CDs Weekly: Bobbie Gentry
‘The Girl From Chickasaw County’ is an enlightening box set dedicated to the ‘Ode to Billie Joe’ hitmaker
theartsdesk Q&A: Chas and Dave
A memorial interview with the lovable rockney duo following the death of Chas Hodges
classical
Classical CDs Weekly: Bernstein, Rachmaninov, Jeffrey Roden
A Broadway musical, Russian symphonies exhumed and a quiet American radical
Jansen, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - nature's splendours and a fond farewell
Richly imaginative 20th-century music sees out a long-serving LSO violinist in style
Ian Bostridge, Thomas Adès, Wigmore Hall review - haunting, brutal Schubert
A Winterreise of psychological intensity, but too often taken to ghoulish extremes
opera
Isouard's Cendrillon, Bampton Classical Opera review - stepsisters shine in fairy-tale bagatelle
Maltese-French composer's Cinders opera is mostly routine, but performed with esprit
Parsifal, Saffron Opera Group review - drama and focus
Amateur company continues its run of dramatically compelling Wagner
War and Peace, Welsh National Opera review - an Operation Barbarossa that comes off
Not quite a masterpiece but a great aural and visual spectacle
theatre
Eyam, Shakespeare's Globe review - plague drama, dark and loose
Back to the 17th century: the village that cut itself off to die
Henry V, Tobacco Factory Theatres, Bristol review - the pity of war
A strikingly contemporary take on a humanity's addiction to conflict
James Graham: 'the country of Shakespeare no longer recognises arts as a core subject'
Full transcript of the playwright's passionate speech about the importance of the arts at the Hospital Club's h100 Awards
dance
'It’s more fun to dance in a tutu': Tory Dobrin of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
The artistic director of the Trocks explains how he keeps his ballet parodists on their toes
theartsdesk in Riga - 43,290 Latvians sing and dance for their country
Individual souls conjoined with a passionate belief in peace and music achieve miracles
Enter theartsdesk / h Club Young Influencer of the Year award
In association with The Hospital Club's h.Club100 Awards, we're looking for the best cultural writers, bloggers and vloggers
comedy
Katherine Ryan, Garrick Theatre review - feminism with extra sass
A laugh-heavy hour from the Canadian
The League of Gentlemen Live Again!, Sunderland Empire review - going local for local people
Sketch group back on the road for the first time since 2005
Edinburgh Fringe 2018: Rose Matafeo review
Edinburgh Comedy Award winner has a wonderfully daft show
gaming
Marvel's Spider-Man review - fandom fodder at its finest
Swinging in the city with the arachnid avenger
h Club 100 Awards: Video games - pioneers with heart and soul
High tech meets high calibre in this year’s list of gaming’s brightest sparks
Jurassic World Evolution review - manage a dinosaur theme park and make a killing
A comprehensive management sim where you feed the exhibits, the punters and your bank balance
visual arts
I object, British Museum review - censorship, accidental?
Exhibition on dissidence and subversion doesn't allow objects to speak for themselves
h 100 Awards: Art, Design and Craft - making art public
Showcasing the strength of British visual culture, and the people bringing it to public attention