sun 16/02/2025

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Theartsdesk
Wednesday, 01 October 2025
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.It followed some hectic and intensive months when a disparate and eclectic...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 16 February 2025
Sharks were formed in 1972 by bassist Andy Fraser after he left Free. There were two albums, line-up changes and ripples which resonated after the band spilt in 1974. A 2017...
Thomas H Green
Saturday, 15 February 2025
Ro first saw Fat Dog, before anyone had heard of them, at the Windmill in Brixton in front of a crowd of about 25 people. Their manic energy blew her head off. Vanessa and Al K...
Boyd Tonkin
Saturday, 15 February 2025
George Gershwin called one of his early classic songs, first created by Fred and Adele Astaire, “Fascinating Rhythm”. It was that mesmeric pull that propelled last night’s Royal...
Aleks Sierz
Saturday, 15 February 2025
I always advocate in favour of more sci-fi plays, and over the past decade there have been a gratifying number of them. But one essential element of any futuristic fantasy must be...
Mark Kidel
Saturday, 15 February 2025
Park Jiha is a super-talented and gloriously inspired Korean multi-instrumentalist. Her new album follows Philos (2018) and The Gleam (2022) and continues to mine a rich vein of...
Nick Hasted
Friday, 14 February 2025
In his first weeks in office, Harrison Ford’s US president survives an assassination attempt inside the White House, goes to...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 14 February 2025
Russia.It’s impossible to be ambivalent towards that word, that country, indeed that idea, one so very similar to our own,...
David Nice
Friday, 14 February 2025
Does any living composer write better for choirs, or more demandingly when circumstances allow, than James MacMillan?...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 14 February 2025
Ridley Scott’s 2001 film Black Hawk Down was a technically superb blockbuster bristling with thunderous action sequences and...
Katie Colombus
Friday, 14 February 2025
Having recently watched the charming animation Marcelle The Shell With Shoes On with my nine-year-old son, I was going to...
James Saynor
Friday, 14 February 2025
The Refugee Movie is rapidly becoming a genre unto itself, with elements of suspense and humanism woven together into...
Ibi Keita
Friday, 14 February 2025
After more than 10 years away, Rizzle Kicks are finally back, and it feels long overdue. Their music was a huge part of my...
Aleks Sierz
Thursday, 13 February 2025
Playwrights who work for decades often acquire a moniker. In the case of Howard Brenton, who began his career as a left-...
Helen Hawkins
Thursday, 13 February 2025
Bridget Jones has grown up: v.v.g. Our heroine is still prone to daft pratfalls and gaffes and bursts of sensational...
Joe Muggs
Thursday, 13 February 2025
This album is SHORT. At 27 minutes and just five tracks, one might wonder why Julienne Dessagne (this is a solo act) didn’t...
David Nice
Wednesday, 12 February 2025
So the Royal Opera had assembled a dream cast, conductor (Edward Gardner) and director (Richard Jones). The only question...
Kieron Tyler
Wednesday, 12 February 2025
The exhortations don’t seem necessary as the audience is already letting off the steam which has built up in anticipation of...
Nick Hasted
Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is now an Oscar-nominated refugee, in a bittersweet harvest for his film The Seed of the...

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★★★★★ BOWLING FOR SOUP, CIVIC HALL, WOLVERHAMPTON Texan pop-punk legends filled the sold-out Civic Hall with pure joy

★★ MANIC STREET PREACHERS - CRITICAL THINKING Lots of words but not so many catchy songs

★★★★ CHURCHILL IN MOSCOW, ORANGE TREE THEATRE Thought-provoking language and power games

★★★★★ NINA CONTI, BRIGHTON DOME A melee of jubilant spontaneity

★★★★ GILLIVER, LIVERMAN, RANGWANASHA, LSO, PAPPANO, BARBICAN Poetic Maconchy and Walton, surging Vaughan Williams bursting its confines

'IT BECAME A QUESTION OF SELF-RESPECT'  Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof on 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig'

★★★★ BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY Michael Morris's deft direction produces a maturer kind of romcom

NORTHERN WINTER BEAT 2025, AALBORG Danish city hosts the festival imbued with a cool which doesn’t need expressing

★★★★★ FESTEN, ROYAL OPERA No slack in Mark-Anthony Turnage's operatic treatment of the visceral first Dogme film 

★★★★★ THE YEARS, HAROLD PINTER THEATRE A bravura, joyous feat of storytelling

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Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

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tv

Surviving Black Hawk Down, Netflix review - the real story behind Ridley Scott's Oscar-winner

Documentary series looks at the 1993 'Battle of Mogadishu' from both sides

Paradise, Disney+ review - enigmatic drama with an unknown destination

Dan Fogelman's new series has an excellent cast but a recycled premise

film

Captain America: Brave New World review - talking loud, saying nothing

Muddled filler between Avengers films which hardly deserves Harrison Ford

Memoir of a Snail review - deliciously offbeat Australian animation

A darkly whimsical stop-motion masterpiece examining the shells we create for ourselves

To a Land Unknown review - the migrant hustle

A slick tale of two refugees striving and surviving in Athens

new music

Music Reissues Weekly: Sharks - Car Crash Supergroup

The early Seventies blues rockers admired by prime movers in British punk

Fat Dog, Chalk, Brighton review - a frenetic techno-rock juggernaut

The rising London outfit deliver a sweaty Cossack-rave hoedown

Album: Park Jiha - All Living Things

Music and nature in synergy

classical

Sidorova, Philharmonia, Alsop, Royal Festival Hall review – ladies of the dance

Vitality, virtuosity and sensuality on a pan-American trip

MacMillan's Ordo Virtutum, BBC Singers, Jeannin, Milton Court review - dramatic journey of a medieval soul

Choral music's finest advocate runs the gamut in an epic battle of heaven and hell

Gilliver, Liverman, Rangwanasha, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - a rainbow of British music

Poetic Maconchy and Walton, surging Vaughan Williams bursting its confines

opera

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Festen, Royal Opera review - firing on every front

No slack in Mark-Anthony Turnage's operatic treatment of the visceral first Dogme film

Phaedra + Minotaur, Royal Ballet and Opera, Linbury Theatre review - a double dose of Greek myth

Opera and dance companies share a theme in this terse but affecting double bill

theatre

More Life, Royal Court review - posthuman tragedy fails to come alive
A new sci-fi gothic horror about life after death is intriguing, but flawed
Churchill in Moscow, Orange Tree Theatre review - thought-provoking language and power games
Howard Brenton’s new play about Winston and Stalin is both intelligent and fun

dance

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Phaedra + Minotaur, Royal Ballet and Opera, Linbury Theatre review - a double dose of Greek myth

Opera and dance companies share a theme in this terse but affecting double bill

Onegin, Royal Ballet review - a poignant lesson about the perils of youth

John Cranko was the greatest choreographer British ballet never had. His masterpiece is now 60 years old

comedy

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Nina Conti: Whose Face Is It Anyway?, Brighton Dome review - a melee of jubilant spontaneity

The ventriloquist-comedian's improvised hour-long outing is skilful and fabulously entertaining

Books

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Philip Marsden: Under a Metal Sky review - rock and awe

Myths, mines, and mankind combine in this wide-eyed reading of the earth beneath our feet

Jacqueline Feldman: Precarious Lease review - living on the edge

The trials and triumphs of a city’s margins are observed by an outside eye

visual arts

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Best of 2024: Visual Arts

A great year for women artists

latest comments

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