theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Aleks Sierz
Sunday, 16 January 2022
History is a prison. Often, you can’t escape. It imprints its mark on people, environments and language. And nowhere is this more true that in Northern Ireland, where the history...
Veronica Lee
Sunday, 16 January 2022
There was a time when UK pantomime was heavily populated by Australian soap stars; rather late in the day Jason Donovan – formerly known as Scott from Neighbours – makes his panto...
Music Reissues Weekly: Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds - Stormy Monday And The Eagles Fly On Friday
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 16 January 2022
TV-watching pop fans in many of the British regions were served a treat on 16 September 1966. A whole episode of Ready Steady Go! was dedicated to Otis Redding, who had arrived in...
Gavin Dixon
Saturday, 15 January 2022
This latest revival of the Royal Opera’s Nabucco production has suffered more than most from COVID disruptions. At the first night, on 20 December, the chorus were obliged to wear...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 15 January 2022
Gidon Kremer: The Warner Collection (Warner Classics)The words of dedication in Gidon Kremer’s autobiography, Between Worlds (2003) are chosen with care. The book is, he...
Mark Kidel
Saturday, 15 January 2022
There is a sense in which Elvis Costello emerged as a recording artist fully grown, with that unique vocal mix of vulnerability and insolence, savvy and often brilliant lyrics....
David Nice
Friday, 14 January 2022
After a too-much-too-soon debut disc, Lisa Davidsen has just rolled out the gold on CD with her great fellow Norwegian Leif...
David Nice
Thursday, 13 January 2022
Most dystopian satires are located in a nightmarish future, but their scripts build on the worst of our world today. Adam...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 13 January 2022
The BBC have billed this as a “four-part thriller about sexual politics in the modern workplace”, which is slightly...
Tim Cumming
Thursday, 13 January 2022
The first set of Spell Songs, The Lost Words, was inspired by nature writer Robert Macfarlane and artist Jackie Morris’s...
Gary Naylor
Wednesday, 12 January 2022
In the 80s, An Audience With... gave a television studio to an actor who then recounted stories culled from a life in...
Veronica Lee
Wednesday, 12 January 2022
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say. I'm not sure One-Woman Show, written and performed by comic, writer...
Jack Barron
Wednesday, 12 January 2022
It might be said that Paula Rego’s subject is light: but rather than painting it, she gives it. She paints deep into social...
Kieron Tyler
Wednesday, 12 January 2022
Although Storm Queen begins forcefully with the suitably tempestuous “Heaven,” the most affecting track on the second album...
David Nice
Tuesday, 11 January 2022
It sounds like the title of a play by Rattigan. No such luck: “Force Majeure” – a legal term with which all too few will be...
Guy Oddy
Tuesday, 11 January 2022
It has been claimed by a good many commentators over the years, that an album of cover versions suggests that an artist is...
David Nice
Monday, 10 January 2022
One of the galvanizing wonders of the operatic world happened when David McVicar’s production of Mozart’s The Marriage of...
Matt Wolf
Monday, 10 January 2022
A small film that packs a significant wallop, The Humans snuck into view at the very end of 2021 to cast a despairing shadow...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 09 January 2022
“The Gun Club were true originals and Jeffrey Lee Pierce a genius. They were the inspiration behind many bands, I myself...
disc of the day
Album: Elvis Costello and the Imposters - The Boy Named If
Nothing will ever stop our super-gifted Elvis
tv
Rules of the Game, BBC One review - feminist workplace drama topples into farce
Screenwriter Ruth Fowler's characters turn into caricatures
The Apprentice, Series 16, BBC One review - will they never learn?
Welcome return of Lord Sugar and his gang of hopefuls
film
Don't Look Up, Netflix review - hitting most targets in high style
Brilliant satire, not preachy lecture, on the way we live now
The Humans review - staring headlong into the abyss
Stephen Karam's Tony-winning play is even bleaker on screen
A Hero review - a morality tale with no firm conclusions
Asghar Farhadi's new film explores a weak man's selfless act, but there's not enough at stake
new music
Music Reissues Weekly: Chris Farlowe & The Thunderbirds - Stormy Monday And The Eagles Fly On Friday
Proof there was more to the blues-soul stylist than oldies radio staple ‘Out of Time’
Album: Elvis Costello and the Imposters - The Boy Named If
Nothing will ever stop our super-gifted Elvis
Album: Spell Songs II – Let the Light In
A second volume of nature-centric magic from the folk supergroup
classical
Classical CDs: Violins, timpani thwacks and a symphony of iron and steel
A birthday tribute for celebrated violinist Gidon Kremer, plus symphonies, operetta and a great 20th century piano concerto
Lise Davidsen, Leif Ove Andsnes, Barbican review - perfect Grieg, impressive Strauss and Wagner
Norwegian soprano and pianist do their greatest compatriot proud in a superb song-cycle
Best of 2021: Classical music concerts
Big orchestral works returned with impressive panache, but for how long?
opera
Nabucco, Royal Opera review - high passion but low drama
Atmospheric but ambiguous production, given extra weight by cast of rich voices
Le nozze di Figaro, Royal Opera review - New Year champagne
Perfect ensembles and recits with Antonio Pappano's return as conductor and fortepianist
Best of 2021: Opera
Only seven and a half months of live performance, but what riches under pressure
theatre
The 4th Country, Park Theatre review – sympathetic and intriguing
Northern Ireland’s contemporary problems get the meta treatment
Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Birmingham Hippodrome review - Jason Donovan makes his panto debut
Australian plays against type as the baddie
David Suchet - Poirot And More, A Retrospective, Harold Pinter Theatre review - the much-loved actor looks back
Sir David Suchet takes us from school days to sleuth days
dance
Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker!, Sadler's Wells Theatre review - new candy, but the nuts are off
This is designer Anthony Ward’s Nutcracker! with multiple exclamation marks
Starstruck, Scottish Ballet review - smart, sassy and cinematic
A ballet by Gene Kelly from 1960 gets new wings
comedy
Shagged. Married. Annoyed. Live, O2 Arena review - popular podcast lost in translation
Intimacy crucial to Chris and Rosie Ramsey's show is missing
Books
The Holiness of Sex: Leonard Cohen's Biblical Theology
Harry Freedman, author of a new book about Leonard Cohen's spirituality, considers the singer's attitude to gettin' it on
Peter Robison: Flying Blind review – a story of decline and crawl
The galling account of the 737 MAX Boeing tragedies
visual arts
Paula Rego: The Forgotten, Victoria Miro review - relentless focus
A selection of later work is more than a coda to Tate's recent retrospective
Anselm Kiefer Pour Paul Celan, Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris review - an installation of rare profundity
Anselm Kiefer's spectacular homage to the poet Paul Celan
latest comments
As background for this excellent review I suggest...
The film was completely biased against Kaiser...
I note that it is easier to describe what the...
One thing that didn’t make sense to me was that...
Your excellent review says she "ends the evening...
this release is messy, the recording technique...
Indeed, brainslip, thanks, I'll correct that.
I've seen this production a few times before and...