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Peter Quinn
Saturday, 16 November 2019
Jazz Voice unfailingly supplies a gigantic sugar-rush of auditory pleasure, and this year’s edition was no exception. Arranged, scored and conducted by the brilliant Guy Barker,...
Boyd Tonkin
Saturday, 16 November 2019
Like almost everything that it touches these days, English National Opera’s autumn season of shows rooted in the Orpheus myth has enjoyed a fairly mixed reception. The company’s...
Jasper Rees
Saturday, 16 November 2019
In Peru in 1985, Joe Simpson - then 25 - and his 21-year-old climbing partner Simon Yates were descending the remote Siula Grande, which was hard to get up but even harder to get...
Joseph Walsh
Saturday, 16 November 2019
It should come as no surprise that the writer of Side Effects and Contagion, Scott Z. Burns, is capable of directing a whip-smart drama like The Report. Known...
Katherine Waters
Saturday, 16 November 2019
My friend, let’s call her Kit, is having a rubbish time. Kat (that’s me) is too. If life’s got a flavour, it’s a shade darker than 99% cocoa. Kit and Kat are bitter. But if life...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 16 November 2019
Donnacha Dennehy: The Hunger Alarm Will Sound/Alan Pierson, with Katherine Manley and Iarla Ó Lionáird (Nonesuch)The Great Irish Famine of 1845-1852 resulted in the deaths...
Kieron Tyler
Saturday, 16 November 2019
The contemporary context of the Netherlands’s Iguana Death Cult is clear. Their blues-edged garage rock exists in a...
Katherine Waters
Friday, 15 November 2019
For a loved one to die by suicide provokes both pain and hurt. Pain, because they are gone. Hurt, because it can feel like...
Jill Chuah Masters
Friday, 15 November 2019
Channel 4’s The Accident closed with a bang and a whimper. Jack Thorne provided a definitive answer to his series’ central...
Aleks Sierz
Friday, 15 November 2019
Theatre can touch thousands of lives. But can it compete with the success of a bestselling book? First published in 1988,...
Richard Bratby
Friday, 15 November 2019
The Beggar’s Opera: does any piece of music theatre promise more fun and deliver more tedium? Yes, it was the satirical...
Theartsdesk
Friday, 15 November 2019
Between 1991 to 2012, Belorussian journalist and oral historian Svetlana Alexievich travelled the countries that constituted...
Nick Hasted
Friday, 15 November 2019
Lady Antebellum have stayed in the mainstream country world Taylor Swift forded to full pop stardom. Beginning alongside her...
Tom Baily
Thursday, 14 November 2019
Once again the whodunit becomes the whoforgedit in the newest installment of the Britain’s Lost Masterpieces series. Host...
Boyd Tonkin
Thursday, 14 November 2019
For better or worse, because of Visconti’s classic film the Adagietto of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony now inevitably means Venice...
Demetrios Matheou
Thursday, 14 November 2019
Forty years after the classic, multi-Oscar winning Kramer v Kramer comes another divorce drama involving two young...
Marianka Swain
Thursday, 14 November 2019
It’s been 15 years since Cameron Mackintosh’s stage musical version of P. L. Travers’ Mary Poppins made its West End debut....
Demetrios Matheou
Thursday, 14 November 2019
Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke stars in this awkward but sweet Yuletide romcom as Kate, a chaotic, George Michael obsessed...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Thursday, 14 November 2019
Of 2019’s pop culture phenomena, the critical reappraisal of Céline Dion as an international treasure is one of the most...
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tv
The Accident, Series Finale, Channel 4 review - ambitious mini-series leaves many unanswered questions
Jack Thorne’s tragic drama aims to give us closure, but is hampered by flat and unconvincing characters
Britain’s Lost Masterpieces, Episode Three, BBC Four review – more than a bit of Botticelli
A hidden Renaissance gem in Cardiff Art Gallery
Gold Digger, BBC One review - Julia Ormond tackles those mid-life blues
Marnie Dickens's family drama asks if life can begin again at 60
film
Marriage Story review - superior weepie
Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver prove a perfect match as an imperfect couple
Last Christmas review - for the stocking, not the tree
No longer mothering dragons, Emilia Clarke comes back down to Earth as an elf
new music
Jazz Voice, Royal Festival Hall - engulfing beauty and hidden gems
EFG London Jazz Festival's opening-night gala provides dreamy reminiscences, nifty footwork and blazing energy
classical
Classical CDs Weekly: Donnacha Dennehy, Handel, Strauss
Historical and Biblical tragedies set to music, plus three character-driven tone poems
Wegener, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review – on the revolutionary road to Mahler
How to blow away the schmaltz, and recover the shock, of an iconic work
ECO, Zacharias, Fairfield Halls Croydon review - green-fingered Haydn
The lights are back on and burning cheerfully at south London’s new/old orchestral venue
opera
Orphée, English National Opera review – through a screen darkly
Matters of life and death reflected in Glass and Cocteau's myth
Mrs Peachum's Guide to Love and Marriage, Mid Wales Opera review - scaled down seediness, with a swing
Toxic femininity takes centre stage in the outrageous essence of The Beggar's Opera
Der Freischütz, Barbican review - Gothic chills rooted in flesh and earth
Two outstanding leads make for a memorable concert-staging
theatre
'By the end I’d lost me': Joe Simpson, mountaineer and writer - interview
The story of Touching the Void has been told and retold. Its author explores its appeal
Touching the Void, Duke of York's Theatre review - not quite high enough
David Greig's much-lauded mountaineering story doesn't quite peak
Mary Poppins, Prince Edward Theatre review - a lavish but old-fashioned revival
Everyone's favourite nanny returns, again
dance
Natalia Osipova: Pure Dance, Sadler's Wells review - a great ballerina branches out, again
This off-piste excursion is no vanity project
Concerto/Enigma Variations/Raymonda Act III, Royal Ballet review - time to cheer the corps de ballet
Three revivals from the mid-Sixties allow the rank and file to shine
The deathless Alicia Alonso, in person
Remembering the woman who was Cuban ballet's legend and monster
comedy
Jack Dee, Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage review - now he really is a grumpy old man
Observational comic has grown into his stage persona
Tim Minchin, Eventim Apollo review - fabulous triumph of rhyme and reason
Age has not withered the ginger Ninja comic, but there is an intruiging new tone
Jonathan Pie, Eventim Apollo review - spoof reporter in coruscating form
Tom Walker's creation gives a state-of-the-union lecture
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
Charlotte Salomon: Life? or Theatre?, Jewish Museum London review - rallying against death
Set aside time to absorb the stunning work of this modernist painter murdered at Auschwitz
Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh, Saatchi Gallery review - worth its weight?
Blockbuster artefacts in show that cares more about visitor numbers than visitor experience
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