theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Owen Richards
Wednesday, 01 April 2020
The UK-wide lockdown has thrown the cinematic release schedule into chaos. Some films are postponed indefinitely, while others have opted for direct digital releases. It’s not...
The Trip to Greece, Series Finale, Sky 1 review - bittersweet swansong for the cantankerous comrades
Adam Sweeting
Tuesday, 31 March 2020
Could this mock-mythic journey, emulating the trek homewards to Ithaca of Homer’s hero Odysseus, really be the final series of The Trip (Sky 1)? Or will Steve Coogan and Rob...
Adam Sweeting
Tuesday, 31 March 2020
The cringe-making horror of adolescent schooldays is vividly re-lived in this US import (on Sky Comedy), but with a cunning twist. Its supposedly confused and hormonal leads are...
Veronica Lee
Tuesday, 31 March 2020
As we are learning each day during lockdown, necessity is the mother of invention. In Channel 4's case, it is learning how the wonders of modern technology can save a situation:...
Liz Thomson
Tuesday, 31 March 2020
Available in Britain now on YouTube for only a couple of days, Elton John’s iHeart Living Room Concert for America was put together in less than a week and was broadcast in the US...
Aleks Sierz
Tuesday, 31 March 2020
With everyone in lockdown, observing physical if not social distancing, a story about isolation can have a particular resonance. And there are few places in the UK that are as...
Veronica Lee
Tuesday, 31 March 2020
Since she burst onto the global scene in 2014 with her debut album, Chaleur humaine, Christine and the Queens' (aka Chris,...
Gavin Dixon
Tuesday, 31 March 2020
No composer since Stravinsky has defined his age as comprehensively as Krzysztof Penderecki, who died on Sunday aged 86....
Jessica Payn
Tuesday, 31 March 2020
South London-based publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions has once more been awarded the Republic of Consciousness Prize,...
Tom Birchenough
Tuesday, 31 March 2020
Zed Nelson brings enormous humanity to this portrait of the changing identity of Hackney’s Hoxton Street as gentrification...
Liz Thomson
Monday, 30 March 2020
We’ve all spent time considering our desert island discs, which is of course why the programme Roy Plomley devised one...
Adam Sweeting
Monday, 30 March 2020
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been saturating the globe with its multi-format superheroes, leaving its DC rival looking...
David Nice
Monday, 30 March 2020
Only the birds will be singing at country opera houses around the UK this summer. Glyndebourne seems over-optimistic in...
Veronica Lee
Monday, 30 March 2020
Michelle Wolf, best known to UK audiences as the comic who upset Donald Trump with some smart barbs aimed at his staff at...
Marina Vaizey
Sunday, 29 March 2020
Assassinate the President! Obliterate history by torching libraries and murdering historians! Crazy leaders and fake news...
David Nice
Sunday, 29 March 2020
He may no longer be the Berlin Philharmoniker's Chief Conductor, but by a combination of serendipity and foresight on the...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 29 March 2020
“My favorite in the place was Karen Dalton. She was a tall white blues singer and guitar player, funky, lanky and sultry....
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 28 March 2020
The Children’s Film Foundation began life in 1950, its brief to provide wholesome home-grown entertainment for Saturday...
Liz Thomson
Saturday, 28 March 2020
“Friday night is Amami night” – that was the ad that ran from the 1920s through to the 1950s for a brand of “setting lotion...
disc of the day
DVD: The Street
Hoxton worlds: insightful, poignant documentary registers social change in a London community
tv
The Trip to Greece, Series Finale, Sky 1 review - bittersweet swansong for the cantankerous comrades
Farce, vanity and profound seriousness somehow hang together
Pen15, Sky Comedy review - the horror of adolescent schooldays revisited
Thirty-somethings Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle revisit their Y2K pubescence
The Steph Show, Channel 4 review - magazine show debuts from host's front room
Steph McGovern to the rescue
film
The Whalebone Box review - documentary through unreliable surrealism
A different kind of road trip with artist Andrew Kötting
DVD: The Street
Hoxton worlds: insightful, poignant documentary registers social change in a London community
DVD: Children's Film Foundation Bumper Box Vol 2
More buried treasure from the CFF archive: a treat for young and old alike
new music
Elton John’s iHeart Living Room Concert for America, YouTube review - the real star was a Mayo Clinic doctor named Elvis
Sir Elton John: this time we can't stand by
Christine and the Queens/Instagram review - musical missives during lockdown
French singer-songwriter's petits cadeaux for her fans
A simple twist of fate - how a chance encounter with 'Joan Baez, Vol 2' 50 years ago led to a festival in Downtown Manhattan
Celebrating Greenwich Village, where the beat lives on
classical
Remembering Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-2020)
Sixties radical became the spiritual voice of Poland as elder statesman
Classical Music/Opera direct to home 4 - Rattle in the ether
The conductor's recent interpretations from Berlin and London online for free
Classical CDs Weekly: Bach, Poulenc, Simon Höfele
Life-enhancing keyboard music, cheery sounds from Paris and a dazzling young trumpeter
opera
Le nozze di Figaro, Garsington Opera, OperaVision review - natural comedy, musical sublimity
Durable period setting enshrines perfect characterisations. Plus a Handel special
Classical music/Opera direct to home: 3 - Two Jenůfas
If you want searing music-drama, Janáček's are the place to start - but choose carefully
Sondheim at 90 Songs: 2 - 'Epiphany'/'A Little Priest'
Is there a better climax to a musical first act than the terror-plus-wit in 'Sweeney Todd'?
theatre
The Croft, Original Theatre online review – give me the remote
Original Theatre’s tartan gothic thriller is complex but also a bit overwrought
Sondheim at 90 Songs: 5 - 'Every Day A Little Death'
A stinging duet from 'A Little Night Music' has a savagely funny power
Sondheim at 90 Songs: 4 - 'America'
Brilliant lyrics from the young composer offer a definitive take on migration
dance
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
Alina, Sadler's Wells review - I think therefore I dance
An unusual hybrid show gives a glimpse into the mind of a great ballerina
comedy
Shappi Khorsandi, Soho Theatre On Demand - enjoyable run-through of her career
Two decades as a stand-up
Roy Hudd: 'I was just trying to make 'em laugh'
The most traditional of entertainers, who has died at 83, harked back to a vanished age
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
latest comments
I agree with Mark's comments. And Joe Zawinul was...
Thanks very much. Yes, indeed, I agree with you...
No! Thank you.
I did comment on McGowan's absence, which was...
Great review, Tim. I enjoyed this excellent film...
It was on in the early evening
Evocative writing, Bill, Brendan is much missed...
Only three decades?