sun 16/06/2024

theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews

Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 16 June 2024
Late summer 1966. Jazz was Margo Guryan’s thing. She was not interested in pop music. This changed when she was played The Beach Boys’s “God Only Knows.” Amazed by what she heard...
Rachel Halliburton
Saturday, 15 June 2024
There’s a masterful subtlety to Philippe Herreweghe’s interpretation of Bach’s last great choral work – it shuns blazing transcendence for a sense of serene contemplation that...
Justine Elias
Saturday, 15 June 2024
Islands off the coast of southern Chile, to the Spanish and German settlers of the 19th century, represented the edge of the world. To the Huilliche, the people who’ve lived there...
Harry Thorfinn-George
Saturday, 15 June 2024
A number of films in recent years have added a distinctly local flavour to the folk-horror genre. Mark Jenkin was inspired by Cornish superstitions in the ghostly Enys Men and...
Tim Cumming
Saturday, 15 June 2024
The mournful, lonesome voice of John Moreland from Bixby, Oklahoma, will be known by a few, but not many, in this country. The 12 songs on his latest album, Visitor, released on...
Jonathan Geddes
Friday, 14 June 2024
The current trend for package tours with two headliners appears to be growing, and this jaunt presented somewhat unlikely bedfellows – the theatrical angst of Billy Corgan’s crew...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 14 June 2024
In Marie Amachoukeli’s Àma Gloria there’s a remarkable performance by a child actor, Louise Mauroy-Panzani. So key is...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 14 June 2024
There’s a category of movies that are best seen having read nothing about them. Susquatch Sunset falls into that...
Veronica Lee
Friday, 14 June 2024
Jazz Emu bounds on to the stage, launching into a song that talks about the importance of team work and how he has no ego....
Thomas H Green
Friday, 14 June 2024
US electronic perennial Moby has had a good run. He was a rave culture phenomenon from 1991 onwards. He blew that with a...
Sarah Kent
Thursday, 13 June 2024
Imagine you’ve inherited a castle in West Sussex plus five square miles of farmland. You continue the family tradition of...
Gary Naylor
Thursday, 13 June 2024
You have to tiptoe around the edge of the set just to take your seat in the Park’s studio space for Lidless Theatre’s Miss...
Guy Oddy
Thursday, 13 June 2024
For a band just putting out their debut album, West Belfast’s Kneecap have been courting media attention for some while and...
David Nice
Wednesday, 12 June 2024
It may be unusual to begin festival coverage with praise of the overseer rather than the artists. Yet Roger Wright, who...
Thomas H Green
Wednesday, 12 June 2024
VINYL OF THE MONTHAriel Sharratt & Matthias Kom Never Work (BB*Island) + Ella Ronen The Girl With No Skin (BB*Island)Two...
Nick Hasted
Wednesday, 12 June 2024
Viggo Mortensen has parlayed film stardom into the life of a hard-working, bohemian-minded gentleman scholar. His Lord of...
Jonathan Geddes
Wednesday, 12 June 2024
There was a point in this pop revival jaunt where you could feel members of the crowd wince. Not for the performance, but...
Kieron Tyler
Wednesday, 12 June 2024
“I feel ashamed because I couldn’t become the man that you always hoped I’d become.” The line is repeated during “Father,”...
Stephen Walsh
Tuesday, 11 June 2024
Why would anyone want to stage a work like The Merry Widow in this day and age? Silly question. It’s the music, stupid. Of...

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 MISS JULIE, PARK THEATRE A traditional staging fuelled by electric leads

WILDING A glorious documentary that engenders hope

THEARTSDESK ON VINYL 84 The most enormous, expansive record reviews in the known universe

THE 2024 ALDEBURGH FESTIVAL Romantic journeys, cosmic hallucinations and wild stomps

★★★★ BEING MR WICKHAM, JERMYN STREET THEATRE The plausible, charming roué gives his version of events 30 years on

★★★ THE MERRY WIDOW, GLYNDEBOURNE Fun and frolics in the Embassy

★★★★ GIRLS ALOUD, OVO HYDRO Pop queens return with poignant hit parade

THE HENSCHEL QUARTET AT 30 On places, people and Freda Swain at Aldeburgh

disc of the day

Album: John Moreland - Visitor

Haunted and haunting Americana

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.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

tv

Eric, Netflix review - a fairytale of New York

Abi Morgan's drama is a strange mix of urban grime and magic realism

theartsdesk Q&A: Matthew Modine on 'Hard Miles', 40 years in showbusiness and safer cycling

An eventful journey from 'Full Metal Jacket' to 'Oppenheimer' and 'Stranger Things'

film

Sorcery review - a tale of shapeshifting revenge

A girl's righteous revenge quest combines with her native beliefs in this Chilean tale

The Moor review - Yorkshire chiller is ambitious but muddled

Despite buzz from the festival circuit, this folk horror film lacks a coherent vision

Àma Gloria review - small-scale triumph with a big emotional payload

A six-year-old girl effortlessly carries this sensitively executed love story

new music

Music Reissues Weekly: Margo Guryan - Words and Music

Lavish box set dedicated to the jazz composer who changed tack to embrace Sixties pop

Album: John Moreland - Visitor

Haunted and haunting Americana

Smashing Pumpkins / Weezer, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - double-bill of unlikely bedfellows makes a racket

Both 90s favourites went hard and heavy, if occasionally too bludgeoning

classical

theartsdesk at the 2024 Aldeburgh Festival - romantic journeys, cosmic hallucinations and wild stomps

Revelation of a master baritone and a new masterpiece at the heart of a packed weekend

First Person: The Henschel Quartet at 30

On places, people, and playing Freda Swain's 'Norfolk' Quartet at the Aldeburgh Festival

opera

Giulio Cesare, Blackwater Valley Opera Festival review - characterful, lustrous Handel on parade

An infinitely various cast compels as the splendour falls on castle walls

Tosca, Opera Holland Park review - passion and populism

1800, 1968, 2024: a smart revival makes Puccini's evergreen shocker sing again

theatre

Miss Julie, Park Theatre review - Strindberg's kitchen drama still packs a punch
Much adapted play gets a traditional staging fuelled by electric leads
Being Mr Wickham, Jermyn Street Theatre review - the plausible, charming roué gives his version of events 30 years on
Adrian Lukis revisits his disruptive character from the BBC adaptation of 'Pride and Prejudice'
Marie Curie, Charing Cross Theatre review - like polonium, best left undiscovered
Celebrated scientist is ill-served by confused and dull show imported from Seoul

dance

Rocio Molina, Sadler's Wells Flamenco Festival review - mystery and dark magic, with a giggle

Annual Spanish showcase opens with a dancer intent on subversion by edgy games

The Winter's Tale, Royal Ballet review - what a story, and what a way to tell it!

A compelling case for ROH's ballet-friendly rebrand

All You Need Is Death review - a future folk horror classic

Irish folkies seek a cursed ancient song in Paul Duane's impressive fiction debut

Books

Hugo Rifkind: Rabbits review - 31 wild parties and a funeral

Comic novel rides the rollercoaster of 1990s teenagerdom among the Scottish elite

Extract: Pariah Genius by Iain Sinclair

A form-defying writer explores the troubled mindscape of a Soho photographer

Jonn Elledge: A History of the World in 47 Borders review - a view from the boundaries

Enjoyable journey through the byways of how lines on maps have shaped the modern world

visual arts

Judy Chicago: Revelations, Serpentine Gallery review - art designed to change the world

At 84, the American pioneer is a force to be reckoned with

Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920, Tate Britain review - a triumph

Rescued from obscurity, 100 women artists prove just how good they can be

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