theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Russ Coffey
Thursday, 09 April 2020
Laura Marling has always loved to weave the textures of '70's Laurel Canyon folk-rock into her music. Never before, though, has she evoked the spirit of David Crosby and Joni...
Marianka Swain
Thursday, 09 April 2020
The National Theatre’s online broadcasts got off to a storming start with One Man, Two Guvnors – watched by over 2.5 million people, either on the night or in the week since its...
Thomas H Green
Thursday, 09 April 2020
Given the times, theartsdesk’s New Music section is starting weekly round-ups of new streaming fare tob liven the spirits and entertainingly pass the time during this lockdown....
Joseph Walsh
Thursday, 09 April 2020
The world might have changed drastically in the wake of Covid-19, but thankfully those hyperactive, candy-coloured Trolls haven’t. Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake are back as...
Bernard Hughes
Thursday, 09 April 2020
When I saw that the Berlin Philharmonic had thrown open the doors to its virtual concert hall the thing that most interested me was to see some Karajan. When I was a child in the...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 09 April 2020
Creating the opening episode of a new comedy series is like flipping pancakes with one hand while playing the Moonlight Sonata with the other. You have to introduce your...
Nick Hasted
Thursday, 09 April 2020
“They say we all have a beast locked up inside of us,” a character observes early in this Korean crime movie. Monsters are...
Aleks Sierz
Thursday, 09 April 2020
She’s an ordinary young woman, and she really doesn’t know what to think. After all, things are way out of control. She...
Thomas H Green
Thursday, 09 April 2020
ZZ Top always seemed like a Texan version of Status Quo. It turns out, from watching this entertaining but hardly revelatory...
Liz Thomson
Thursday, 09 April 2020
This is the perfect album for these dark and dislocating times, a delicious slice of folk-Americana, 10 beautifully crafted...
Jasper Rees
Wednesday, 08 April 2020
John Prine, who has died at the age of 73 from a Covid 19-related illness, was one of the great American folk poets. Having...
Matt Wolf
Wednesday, 08 April 2020
The talk is of an “economy in ruin [with] unemployment through the roof”: a précis of Britain in lockdown? In fact, this is...
Joe Boyd
Wednesday, 08 April 2020
When it comes to making records, I love deadlines. Embarking on an open-ended project, particularly with the infinite number...
David Nice
Wednesday, 08 April 2020
One way to look at Stravinsky's celebrated collaboration with W H Auden and Chester Kallman is as a numbers opera in nine...
Sarah Collins
Wednesday, 08 April 2020
When Amer Deghayes departed for Syria in a truck leaving from Birmingham, a worker from a youth arts organisation in...
Adam Sweeting
Wednesday, 08 April 2020
When the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany was liberated by the British 11th Armoured Division...
Adam Sweeting
Wednesday, 08 April 2020
Director Oleg Stepchenko’s follow-up to his 2014 yarn Forbidden Kingdom swaps the latter’s Transylvania for a fantastical...
Nick Hasted
Wednesday, 08 April 2020
Their debut’s title was a disillusioned shrug, and for most of the 19 years since Is This It, The Strokes have continued...
Matt Wolf
Tuesday, 07 April 2020
One of the most blistering stage performances in recent memory gets a renewed lease on life with the streaming of the 2019...
disc of the day
Album: Laura Marling - Song for our Daughter
The introspective troubadour evokes the spirit of Joni Mitchell on this captivating album
tv
Alma's Not Normal, BBC Two review - bare-knuckle comedy pilot hits the spot
Great cast and outsized characters in Sophie Willan's new creation
Return to Belsen, ITV review - Jonathan Dimbleby retraces his father's journey to a nightmare world
Are the terrible lessons of the Holocaust in danger of being forgotten?
Ozark, Series 3 review, Netflix - money-laundering saga hits new heights
A superb cast and powerful writing are making this show a classic
film
Trolls World Tour review - a visual spectacle full of toe-tapping tunes
Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake return as the diminutive heroes that just can't stop
The Iron Mask review - preposterous multi-national fantasy
Oleg Stepchenko's film is a weird mix of Chinese folklore, bogus history and atrocious dubbing
new music
Album: Laura Marling - Song for our Daughter
The introspective troubadour evokes the spirit of Joni Mitchell on this captivating album
New Music Lockdown Livestream Special 1: Miley Cyrus, Metallica, Diplo and more
First weekly round-up of Corona lockdown streams from music-land
ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band From Texas, Netflix review - riffs, drugs and rodeos
Documentary on Texan rockers never really gets under the hood but is still passingly enjoyable
classical
Berlin Philharmoniker, Karajan, Digital Concert Hall review - a captivating musical time capsule
Online archive captures a conducting titan in Brahms's 'Ein Deutsches Requiem'
Classical Music/Opera direct to home 5 - orchestral manoeuvres in the light
Filleted Bach, Beethoven and Ravel, complete anthemic Sibelius
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Prokofiev, A Tale of Two Violas
Weighty piano sonatas from Germany and Russia, plus a disc of string duets
opera
The Rake's Progress, Complicité online review - well-projected journey from pastoral to madhouse
Big, bold approach to time-travelling Stravinsky misses out on nuance
The Turn of the Screw, Opera North, OperaVision review - claustrophobic visions of terror and beauty
Strongly-cast revival keeps the ambiguities of Henry James's ghost story in play
Le nozze di Figaro, Garsington Opera, OperaVision review - natural comedy, musical sublimity
Durable period setting enshrines perfect characterisations. Plus a Handel special
theatre
Jane Eyre, National Theatre at Home review - a fiery feminist adaptation
Sally Cookson's take on Brontë is innately theatrical and ferociously resonant
Gators, Tramp Productions online review - the glittering dark
Gloriously surreal monologue about everyday anxieties in extraordinary circumstances
Wonderland, Hampstead Theatre online review - a major play about the miners
Beth Steel award-winner makes for muscular, eerily apposite fare
dance
Rumpelstiltskin, Sadler's Wells Digital Stage review - spins an engaging yarn for young audiences
balletLORENT provides a sunnier take on the the Brothers Grimm
Richard Alston Dance Company, Final Edition, Sadler's Wells review - farewell and thank you, Sir Richard
Amid tears and cheers, the company takes a final bow
Isadora Now, Barbican Theatre review - a little piece of history
Attempt to revive the spirit of Isadora Duncan is of academic interest, little more
comedy
Blu-ray: Buster Keaton - Three Films, Vol. 2
Technical brilliance and belly laughs: three features from a great director at his peak
Lazy Susan, Soho Theatre On Demand review - sketch duo's ingeniously plotted show
Freya Parker and Celeste Dring examine male behaviour
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
10 Questions for Irina Nalis
Multidisciplinary thinking at a multidisciplinary festival in a time of crisis
Léon Spilliaert, Royal Academy review - a maudlin exploration of solitude
The world seen through the eyes of melancholy
Among the Trees, Hayward Gallery review - a mixture of euphoria and dismay
Our complex relationship with trees explored to powerful effect
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