theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Tom Birchenough
Friday, 14 November 2025
We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts lovers and professionals alike – but the...
James Saynor
Friday, 19 September 2025
Perhaps only in Japan might it be thought the height of delinquency for a bunch of schoolkids is to spend the night sneaking back to school, climbing in and hanging out in a music...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 19 September 2025
If you ever wanted to know what a mash up of Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson, stirred (and there’s a lot of stirring in this play) with a soupçon of Chekhov, Ibsen and...
Tom Carr
Friday, 19 September 2025
For the trio of Biffy Clyro, the years since their previous album, 2021’s The Myth Of The Happily After, have provided a valuable lesson in cherishing their achievements and close...
Aleks Sierz
Thursday, 18 September 2025
OMG! I mean OMG doubled!! This is amazing! Or is it? Can Alice Birch’s Romans: A Novel at the Almeida Theatre really be the best play on the London stage, or is it not? Can...
Markie Robson-Scott
Thursday, 18 September 2025
Some time in the not too distant future, there are only two films on offer: Duck Soup, and, if you order the DVD in advance, Zoolander. And you have to watch them in a museum....
James Saynor
Thursday, 18 September 2025
Somehow both rugged and smooth, embodying American values yet often turning up his collar against them, Robert Redford – who...
Kieron Tyler
Thursday, 18 September 2025
Hackney’s Round Chapel is an appropriate venue. Scottish smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul opens her set with “Dùsgadh/...
ALA NI
Thursday, 18 September 2025
I’ve never thought of myself as a political artist. I write about love. The tender bits, the messy bits, the heartbreak that...
Graham Fuller
Thursday, 18 September 2025
With their second album Altar, the Irish combo NewDad has moved from the love-embittered shoegaze of their 2023 debut Madra...
Demetrios Matheou
Wednesday, 17 September 2025
In the summer of 2005, Robert Redford, who died this week, attended the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic, to...
Gary Naylor
Wednesday, 17 September 2025
Unexpectedly, there’s a sly reference to James Joyce’s Ulysses interpolated into Act One (in case we hadn’t caught the...
Bernard Hughes
Wednesday, 17 September 2025
Concerts at the Wigmore Hall offer many types of pleasure, but not often an evening so straightforwardly fun as Monday night...
Guy Oddy
Wednesday, 17 September 2025
Neil Hannon has been recording and touring as the Divine Comedy since 1989 and has tried a fair few flavours along the way,...
Simon Thompson
Tuesday, 16 September 2025
My colleague Boyd Tonkin visited the Lammermuir Festival for the first time this year. His eyes and ears have been opened to...
Claudia Bull
Tuesday, 16 September 2025
How do you tell the story of a person’s mind? In the preface to Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark, published this...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 16 September 2025
Westerns had long been popular with German cinema audiences, some of the most successful being early 1960s West German...
Adam Sweeting
Monday, 15 September 2025
That difficult second documentary – or if you will, “rockumentary” – seems to have been especially challenging for Spinal...
Stephen Walsh
Monday, 15 September 2025
So it’s come to this: WNO’s autumn season reduced to two operas, a Tosca borrowed from Opera North and a revival of their...
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disc of the day
Album: NewDad - Altar
The hard-gigging trio yearns for old Ireland – and blasts music biz exploitation
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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
Blu-ray: The Sweeney - Series One
Influential and entertaining 1970s police drama, handsomely restored
I Fought the Law, ITVX review - how an 800-year-old law was challenged and changed
Sheridan Smith's raw performance dominates ITV's new docudrama about injustice
The Paper, Sky Max review - a spinoff of the US Office worth waiting 20 years for
Perfectly judged recycling of the original's key elements, with a star turn at its heart
film
Happyend review - the kids are never alright
In this futuristic blackboard jungle everything is a bit too manicured
Can I get a Witness? review - time to die before you get old
Ann Marie Fleming directs Sandra Oh in dystopian fantasy that fails to ignite
new music
Brìghde Chaimbeul, Round Chapel review - enchantment in East London
Inscrutable purveyor of experimental Celtic music summons creepiness and intensity
Album: NewDad - Altar
The hard-gigging trio yearns for old Ireland – and blasts music biz exploitation
First Person: Musician ALA.NI on how thoughts of empire and reparation influenced a song
She usually sings about affairs of the heart - 'TIEF' is different, explains the star
classical
Appl, Levickis, Wigmore Hall review - fun to the fore in cabaret and show songs
A relaxed evening of light-hearted fare, with the accordion offering unusual colours
Lammermuir Festival 2025, Part 2 review - from the soaringly sublime to the zoologically ridiculous
Bigger than ever, and the quality remains astonishingly high
BBC Proms: Ehnes, Sinfonia of London, Wilson review - aspects of love
Sensuous Ravel, and bittersweet Bernstein, on an amorous evening
opera
Tosca, Welsh National Opera review - a great company reduced to brilliance
The old warhorse made special by the basics
BBC Proms: The Marriage of Figaro, Glyndebourne Festival review - merriment and menace
Strong Proms transfer for a robust and affecting show
BBC Proms: Suor Angelica, LSO, Pappano review - earthly passion, heavenly grief
A Sister to remember blesses Puccini's convent tragedy
theatre
Reunion, Kiln Theatre review - a stormy night in every sense
Beautifully acted, but desperately grim drama
Romans: A Novel, Almeida Theatre review - a uniquely extraordinary work
Alice Birch’s wildly epic family drama is both mind-blowing and exasperating
The Producers, Garrick Theatre review - Ve haf vays of making you laugh
You probably know what's coming, but it's such great fun!
dance
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
A Single Man, Linbury Theatre review - an anatomy of melancholy, with breaks in the clouds
Ed Watson and Jonathan Goddard are extraordinary in Jonathan Watkins' dance theatre adaptation of Isherwood's novel
Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby, Rambert, Sadler's Wells review - exciting dancing, if you can see it
Six TV series reduced to 100 minutes' dance time doesn't quite compute
comedy
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Cat Cohen / Lachlan Werner / KC Shornima
Defying a health scare; a surreal invention & a distinctive new voice
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Emmanuel Sonubi / Joz Norris
A second chance at life & a fantastical tale about artistic endeavour
Books
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Frances Wilson: Electric Spark - The Enigma of Muriel Spark review - the matter of fact
Frances Wilson employs her full artistic power to keep pace with Spark’s fantastic and fugitive life
Elizabeth Alker: Everything We Do is Music review - Prokofiev goes pop
A compelling journey into a surprising musical kinship
visual arts
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Folkestone Triennial 2025 - landscape, seascape, art lovers' escape
Locally rooted festival brings home many but not all global concerns
Sir Brian Clarke (1953-2025) - a personal tribute
Remembering an artist with a gift for the transcendent
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