theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 01 July 2022
As the world lurches ever deeper into multiple manifestations of chaos, writer-director Peter Kosminsky’s new drama about cyber-warfare taps into the prevailing climate of unease...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 01 July 2022
We’re in New York City, in an upscale loft apartment, with that absence of stuff that speaks of a power to acquire anything. There are paintings on the walls, but we see only...
India Lewis
Friday, 01 July 2022
The title of Katya Adaui’s debut collection in English is taken from one of the 12 short stories it contains: an allusion to the depths hidden below the surface, which is also one...
Veronica Lee
Friday, 01 July 2022
Joe Lycett’s career was on an upward trajectory when he took on hosting duties on The Great British Sewing Bee, and the crafting show delivered a whole new audience for his live...
Guy Oddy
Friday, 01 July 2022
In a week when all kinds of people were going bonkers over an octogenarian playing songs from over 50 years ago to tens of thousands of people in a field in Somerset, it’s nice to...
Barney Harsent
Friday, 01 July 2022
“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” That’s the rule, right? Unless, of course, what happens is that you form a pop-rock act with a remarkable ear for a route-one hook and a...
Caspar Gomez
Thursday, 30 June 2022
Last days of June 2022, I sit in my writing hut. My liver is radioactive jelly, my nose reinforced concrete, my leg muscles...
Markie Robson-Scott
Thursday, 30 June 2022
Nitram, Australian director Justin Kurzel’s deeply disturbing film about the man responsible for the Port Arthur massacre in...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 30 June 2022
Rowan Atkinson’s strange little comedy (written by Will Davies) is the story of Trevor Bingley, a rather pitiable late-...
David Nice
Thursday, 30 June 2022
Irish soprano Jennifer Davis, a stunning Elsa in this Royal Opera season's revival of Wagner’s Lohengrin, was the lure to...
Kieron Tyler
Thursday, 30 June 2022
“The historic, the prehistoric, the natural, architectural, geological, ornithological, or on the side of its folklore,...
Aleks Sierz
Wednesday, 29 June 2022
I live in Brixton, south London. A few days ago, the borough’s aptly named Windrush Square hosted events which celebrated...
Graham Fuller
Wednesday, 29 June 2022
It takes some confidence for a first-time feature director to interrupt her essentially realistic first feature with a...
Hugh Barnes
Wednesday, 29 June 2022
Stanislav Aseyev is a Ukrainian writer who came in from the cold. Until the spring of 2014, he was an aspiring poet and...
Sarah Kent
Tuesday, 28 June 2022
Director Alice Diop read an article by Pierre Bergounioux in which he described how he began writing to draw attention to...
David Nice
Tuesday, 28 June 2022
Could this be the summer Bayreuth finally sees a new Ring production that comes anywhere near its last great epic success,...
David Nice
Tuesday, 28 June 2022
He’s the most haunting, at times terrifying Wozzeck I’ve seen, in Richard Jones's Welsh National Opera baked-bean-factory...
Guy Oddy
Tuesday, 28 June 2022
The last time that Paolo Nutini was on the public stage, he was knocking out fine blue-eyed soul and having substantial hits...
Tim Cumming
Monday, 27 June 2022
A few spots of rain greeted the arrival of the Rolling Stones on BST Hyde Park’s stage on Saturday night, and after “Street...
disc of the day
Album: Imagine Dragons - Mercury - Act 2
The Vegas pop-rockers start brightly, but soon fade on their overlong sequel
tv
The Undeclared War, Channel 4 review - how would the UK cope with a devastating cyber-attack?
Peter Kosminsky's drama probes the secret world of GCHQ's techno-spooks
Man vs Bee, Netflix review - or should it be Bee vs Bean?
Rowan Atkinson's new comic character is no Blackadder
Suspect, Channel 4 review - a stylised remake of a Danish psychological drama
James Nesbitt returns as another troubled policeman with a dark back-story (and matching eyebrows)
film
Nitram review - chilling drama based on the Port Arthur gunman
Caleb Landry Jones in an extraordinary performance as a man-child without empathy
Moon, 66 Questions review - captivating daughter-father drama
An outstanding debut by the Greek New Wave director Jacqueline Lentzou
We (Nous) review - a low-key look at life in the suburbs of Paris
Nothing much happens in Alice Diop's documentary portrait of the periphery
new music
The Bobby Lees, Hare & Hounds, Birmingham review - rock’n’roll like it should be
Screaming feedback, howling vocals and a thumping beat suggest that rock’n’roll is still very much alive
Album: Imagine Dragons - Mercury - Act 2
The Vegas pop-rockers start brightly, but soon fade on their overlong sequel
Glastonbury Festival 2022: an unexpurgated odyssey around the best party on the planet
The biggest, wildest, most extensive Glastonbury 2022 report of them all
classical
George Fu, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - high intellect and visceral shocks
Chopin the modernist, Rzewski the electric in totally satisfying recital
First person: Ukrainian violinist Valeriy Sokolov on performing while his homeland is destroyed
His home city of Kharkiv in ruins, a great musician plays on
Hughes, Manchester Collective, Hallé St Peter’s, Manchester review - new work and stunning singing
Edmund Finnis song cycle gets its launch with passion, anguish and consolation
opera
Così fan tutte, Royal Opera review - vibrant youth and vocal beauty
Lithe cast and conducting unfazed by over-egged production, at least until the bitter end
theartsdesk in Zurich - forging a brilliant new Ring
Gianandrea Noseda, Andreas Homoki and top cast dazzle in an unforgettable 'Rheingold'
theartsdesk Q&A: bass-baritone Christopher Purves on communicating everything from Handel to George Benjamin
The great singing actor on his best experiences - including Zurich Opera's new Ring
theatre
The White Card, Soho Theatre review - expelling the audience from its comfort zone
Art and race intersect to provocative effect
The Fellowship, Hampstead Theatre review - strong clashes, too little drama
Roy Williams’s latest is a tribute to the children of the Windrush generation
Mad House, Ambassadors Theatre review - David Harbour is magnificent in Theresa Rebeck's family drama
Bravado support from a cantankerous Bill Pullman practically steals the show
dance
The Rite of Spring, Pina Bausch/École des Sables, Sadler's Wells review - explosive and disturbing
At last, the pan-African production of Bausch's landmark choreography arrives on the London stage
The Car Man, Royal Albert Hall review - grand scale drama and decadence
An explosive restaging of the original dance drama
Like Water for Chocolate, Royal Ballet review - confusing and ill-conceived
Christopher Wheeldon's usual flair deserts him in his latest three-act story ballet
comedy
Joe Lycett, Eventim Apollo review - prankster goes long-form
Former Sewing Bee host tells a complicated tale
Ricky Gervais, SuperNature, Netflix review - a provocateur at work
An equal opportunities offender delivers a masterclass in meta comedy
Andy Zaltzman, Soho Theatre review - satire on the hoof
Setting the world to rights, one joke at a time
Books
Katya Adaui: Here Be Icebergs review - odd relations
Beguiling stories of families, familiars, guns and red hair
Stanislav Aseyev: In Isolation - Dispatches from Occupied Donbas review - journeys through space and time in Ukraine
How the separatist republic became lost in its nostalgia for a largely imaginary past
Mieko Kawakami: All the Lovers in the Night review - the raw relatability of loneliness
A sumptuous, subtle novel on darkness and hope
visual arts
Eric Ravilious: Drawn to War review - a lovingly crafted documentary portrait
In love and war: one of England's great watercolourists reappraised
Vivian Maier: Anthology, MK Gallery review - what an amazing eye!
The brilliance of an amateur photographer who was almost lost to the world
Venice Biennale 2022 review - The Milk of Dreams Part 2: The Arsenale
This wildly ambitious mega-exhibition unravels in spectacular style
latest comments
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