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Gavin Dixon
Saturday, 21 April 2018
The Brahms violin sonatas make a perfect spring evening recital. The Second and Third were inspired by a summer retreat, but all three are light, bright and with direct melodic...
Tom Birchenough
Saturday, 21 April 2018
Conflict and comedy can be unpredictable bedfellows, and Chicago playwright Joel Drake Johnson’s 2014 play occasionally risks overstretching itself in its attempts to reconcile...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 21 April 2018
Hans Abrahamsen String Quartets No. 1-4 Arditti String Quartet (Winter & Winter)The opening section of Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen’s 2012 String Quartet No. 4 is subtitled...
Veronica Lee
Saturday, 21 April 2018
Home From Home, written by newcomers Chris Fewtrell and Simon Crowther, first saw life as a pilot in the BBC’s Landmark Sitcom Season in 2016, the channel's search for new and...
Tim Cumming
Saturday, 21 April 2018
Willie Nelson turned 85 at the end of April, a few days after releasing his latest album and a rare set of self-penned new songs, Last Man Standing. “I don’t want to be the last...
Thomas H Green
Friday, 20 April 2018
Record Store Day 2018 – Saturday April 21 – is upon us. It should really be Record Shop Day 2018 as this is the UK but let’s not quibble. Instead, put aside cynicism about major...
Matthew Wright
Friday, 20 April 2018
Over 30 years after he made his debut as a solo artist, woodwind multi-instrumentalist Courtney Pine is still Britain’s most...
Jasper Rees
Friday, 20 April 2018
There’s a serious film to be made about the German occupation of the Channel Islands. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel...
Marianka Swain
Friday, 20 April 2018
Back by feverishly popular demand, Jim Steinman’s mega-musical is no longer in danger of alarming unsuspecting opera-goers....
Owen Richards
Friday, 20 April 2018
As if the real world wasn’t scary enough... Ghost stories are en vogue at the moment, and after the BBC’s hit-and-miss...
Russ Coffey
Friday, 20 April 2018
On Wednesday night, the music world took a small step closer to the realms of science fiction. Roy Orbison, 30 years dead,...
David Nice
Friday, 20 April 2018
Opera on film's most magical offering, better by some way than Joseph Losey's cinematically tricksy Don Giovanni, at last...
Demetrios Matheou
Thursday, 19 April 2018
It’s about time Juliette Binoche and Claire Denis teamed up: the legendary French actress, Gallic film royalty known by her...
David Nice
Thursday, 19 April 2018
Kudos, as ever, to Vladimir Jurowski for making epic connections. Not only did he bookend a rich LPO concert with two very...
Veronica Lee
Thursday, 19 April 2018
One of the joys of writing about comedy over the past few years is the decreasing frequency with which I am asked to comment...
Mark Sanderson
Thursday, 19 April 2018
Eight months have passed since the Russians invaded Norway in the first season of Jo Nesbo’s neo-Cold War thriller. Real-...
Veronica Lee
Thursday, 19 April 2018
It's always nice to come away from a show having learned something and Angela Barnes, history buff and a woman with an...
Guy Oddy
Thursday, 19 April 2018
Ambient metal outlier and leader of the mighty Earth, Dylan Carlson’s new solo album is the soundtrack to an imaginary...
David Nice
Wednesday, 18 April 2018
They did things differently in 1858. Between the movements of Brahms's surprising new Requiem in the Biblical German of...
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tv
True Horror, Channel 4 review - a Ronseal approach to ghost stories
New anthology based on real accounts provides the scares and not much else
Occupied, series 2, Sky Atlantic review - political conflicts looking all too actual
Jo Nesbo’s neo-Cold War drama of Russia vs the rest - aka truth vs lies - resumes
film
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society review - artery-furring whimsy
Lily James seeks postwar secrets in a Channel Islands weepie
DVD/Blu-ray: Bergman's The Magic Flute
Pretty start, heart of darkness: the greatest of all opera films now available to UK viewers
Juliette Binoche: ‘Repetition feels like near death’
The star of Let the Sunshine In talks about love, psychics, her first collaboration with Claire Denis and calling Depardieu on his bad manners
new music
theartsdesk on Vinyl: Record Store Day Special 2018
RSD 2018 vinyl reviews of Snapped Ankles, Undertones, LUMP, Fleet Foxes, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sparks, Miles Davis, Yazoo and more
10 Questions for Courtney Pine: 'How do you express rage?'
Pioneering solo jazz artist hails the community of jazz
classical
Ibragimova, Tiberghien, Wigmore Hall review – light, bright and melodic Brahms
Sensitive but dynamic playing perfectly conveys the music’s carefree spirit
Classical CDs Weekly: Hans Abrahamsen, Lully, Strauss, Duo Jatekok
Danish string quartets, two sets of incidental music and the legacy of an American pianistic partnership
Andsnes, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - dazzling symphonic contrasts, plus oddities
Stunning articulation in generous helpings of Stravinsky with Shostakovich and Debussy
opera
DVD/Blu-ray: Bergman's The Magic Flute
Pretty start, heart of darkness: the greatest of all opera films now available to UK viewers
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Royal Opera review - bleak rigour and black comedy still cast a spell
Eva-Maria Westbroek returns on top form as Shostakovich's lethally bored housewife
Bernstein's MASS, RFH review - polymorphousness in excelsis
Vibrant diversity in this ever-topical 'theatre piece for singers, players and dancers'
theatre
Rasheeda Speaking, Trafalgar Studios review - unsettling comedy, thorny racism
Bravura performance from Tanya Moodie in sharp new American drama of racial discord
Bat Out of Hell, Dominion Theatre review - the Meat Loaf musical returns, batty as ever
The booming behemoth is right at home in We Will Rock You’s old digs
Tina, Aldwych Theatre review - new Tina Turner bio-musical is simply OK
Powerhouse Adrienne Warren is the saving grace of a show that plays it safe
dance
Obsidian Tear / Marguerite and Armand / Elite Syncopations, Royal Opera House review - an evening of high-performance mismatch
Fine dancing, but these three ballets have nothing to say to each other
Voices of America, English National Ballet review - a punchy programme of contemporary ballet
Forsythe commission is a romping, swaggering joy of a piece
Classical CDs Weekly: Lūcija Garūta, Dag Wirén, Ruby Hughes
20th century discoveries from Latvia and Sweden, plus a tribute to Handel's favourite soprano
comedy
Daliso Chaponda, Touring review - uneven but entertaining
Britain's Got Talent finalist on first UK tour
Score review - breathless dash through music and film
Fascinating but frenetic documentary celebrating movie composers
gaming
Metal Gear Survive review - staying alive shouldn't be such a slog
Bring out your wild side in this strange survivalist simulation
EA Sports UFC 3 review - the art of fighting has never looked so good
Why bob and weave when you can ground and pound?
visual arts
Monet and Architecture, National Gallery review - a revelation in paint
The king of the blockbuster seen in a new light
Helaine Blumenfeld: Britain’s most successful sculptor you’ve never heard of
The director of a new Sky Arts documentary profile of the sculptor explores her work
latest comments
After seeing it for, I think, the fourth time a...
Alas a very disappointing play and production...
So me and my girlfriend just watched this...
You are probably right that most criticism will...
C an anyone tell me the name of the piano tune in...
The black nurse is seen sat behind her friend who...
Arrrgh! I read this and even told some friends of...
Not only is Professor Beard's presentation poor...