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theartsdesk |
We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts lovers and professionals alike – but the…
Rachel Halliburton |
I have to confess, I hadn’t been sure what to expect when I heard about The Art of Fugue staged with acrobats. This latest collaborative experiment in the Southbank Centre’s…
Katie Colombus |
In an era of excessive production for live shows, it is striking to see a band of Big Thief’s stature walk onto a stage this large and offer almost nothing but the songs…
Bernard Hughes |
Messiaen’s Turangalîla, his sprawling 10-movement, 75-minute extravaganza, is garish, graphic and glorious. It is a full-bore, Technicolor, over-the-top, spectacular blast of…
graham.rickson |
Sir Adrian Boult: Complete Stereo Recordings 1956-1978 (Warner Classics)
Image
This hefty box set contains 79 discs, the…
peter.quinn |
This first full-length album from K-pop sextet NCT WISH – one of five NCT sub-units together with NCT 127, NCT Dream, WayV, and NCT U – is a 10-track delight, with not a filler in…
Jonathan Geddes
In just over three years Olivia Dean has gone from taking the stage at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow to selling out two nights at the city’s largest venue. Such a leap up in…
Robert Beale
Ives’ The Unanswered Question remained unanswered when the BBC Philharmonic and John Storgårds performed it in the Bridgewater Hall in January, but on this occasion, with Thomas…
Joe Muggs
All of us, no matter how media-literate we think we are, in some way or another absorb received opinion about particular musicians. It’s particularly easy when they are, in the…
Thomas H. Green
Mille Petrozza was born in 1967 to a Calabrian father, and a mother who was a refugee from Communist East Germany. He grew up in the Altenessen district of Essen, in Germany’s…
Kieron Tyler
Lurking within the heaviness and tractor-reversing-through-sludge dynamics of Hastings-based hairies Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell’s fifth album is a sense of poppiness. In an…
aleks.sierz
Wars in the Middle East provoke furious arguments. Red hot. So why is British theatre so cool, distinctly chilly, about staging new work about these controversial issues? If any…
David Nice
As those of us who were there at what turned out to be his unofficial inaugural concert with the Irish Chamber Orchestra will know, Henning Kraggerud dances, and makes sure his…
Rachel Halliburton
This new play, In The Print – by Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky – gives a pacy account of the seminal moment when Rupert Murdoch moved News International to Wapping. Over the last…
Tom Carr
To say the last few years have been some of the most painful and tumultuous for Foo Fighters would be quite the understatement. The band's long term drummer, Taylor Hawkins,…
Adam Sweeting
Filmmaker Charlotte Regan has been moving steadily up the creative ladder with music videos, short films and her 2023 feature debut Scrapper, which made a splash at the Sundance…
Boyd Tonkin
Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius is generally discussed and judged – and judgment, of course, stands at the heart of the work – by those who love, indeed revere, without any…
Mark Kidel
Ace bass-player Jasper Høiby achieved fame with his band Phronesis, recording and performing sophisticated yet accessible jazz, and establishing themselves as leaders in the…
Pamela Jahn
The main female characters in Christian Petzold’s films are kindred spirits – sisters in subversiveness. Petzold and Nina Hoss collaborated on six movies together, from the made-…
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tv
Charlotte Regan's genre-jumping drama defies categorisation
Well paced and excellently cast, this revival still needs more of a sense of danger
Is anything real in Ben Chanan's digital dystopia?
film
Messiaen’s 'Turangalîla' well played, but overwhelmed by a trivialising animation
Another Petzold heroine tries on a different identity in his latest mesmerising drama
new music
The Brooklyn four prove less is more
This debut album is a genre-hopping feast for the ears
The singer has gone from tiny clubs to arenas in just three years
classical
Circa's acrobatics bracingly express a philosophical idea of the body
Messiaen’s 'Turangalîla' well played, but overwhelmed by a trivialising animation
A famous conductor celebrated in box form, plus romantic piano music and English song
opera
Love among the chills in Bartók’s House of Horrors
Gerald Barry's Salome, NSO Ireland, Kuhn, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - funny-queasy genius
Paradoxically both ordered and wild(e), with weird twists and superb performances
Lusty singing, plenty of space and not a sail in sight
theatre
Autobiographical show about the Middle East prefers utopian longing to political engagement
A spiky depiction of the struggle between trade union leader Brenda Dean and Rupert Murdoch
Can it be as good as it was 20 years go? Of course it can!
dance
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Body & Soul, English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells review - a surefire hit and an absolute plonker
Getting it very right and very wrong in this contemporary double bill
After 25 years and counting, Cassa Pancho's fine company remains essential
comedy
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
The character comic looks back at his career
books
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
The last surviving member of Beyond the Fringe never ceases to engage
A small-scale journey through literary afterlives unveils a world of wonders
visual arts
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
An artist who has lost her way
Gorgeous paintings in search of belonging
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