theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Adam Sweeting
Monday, 17 June 2024
Scott Turow published his cunningly-wrought legal thriller in 1987, and Alan J Pakula’s powerful movie version, starring Harrison Ford, appeared in 1990. Enough time has elapsed,...
Bernard Hughes
Monday, 17 June 2024
London’s non-professional orchestra sector is an undervalued asset to the city, and deserves more attention. And so last night I went to hear the Royal Orchestral Society,...
Nick Hasted
Monday, 17 June 2024
Benjamin Brewer’s post-apocalyptic, Nic Cage-starring creature feature finds a sombre interest in fatherhood and growing up in screenwriter Michael Nilon’s bleak scenario, after...
Jenny Gilbert
Monday, 17 June 2024
Launching a four-year global project to proclaim the genius of Frederick Ashton might seem unnecessary. His work is the bedrock of what’s widely known as The English Style and...
Markie Robson-Scott
Sunday, 16 June 2024
How can it be part of God’s plan to allow so much pain and suffering in the world, asks Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins) of a young Oxford don, CS Lewis (Matthew Goode). His...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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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
Presumed Innocent, Apple TV+ review - you read the book and saw the movie...
Jake Gyllenhaal stars in absorbing TV adaptation of Scott Turow's legal thriller
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
Arcadian review - Nic Cage underacts at the end of the world
Cage is his sons' stoic guardian in a post-apocalyptic world besieged by night-terrors
Freud's Last Session review - Freud and CS Lewis search for meaning in 1939
Does God exist? Matthew Brown directs Anthony Hopkins as Freud and Matthew Goode as CS Lewis
Sorcery review - a tale of shapeshifting revenge
A girl's righteous revenge quest combines with her native beliefs in this Chilean tale
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
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
Goldscheider, Royal Orchestral Society, Miller, SJSS review – fine horn playing from the very best
A tribute to Ukrainian music also featured a fearless take on Shostakovich
Bach's Mass in B Minor, Collegium Vocale Gent, Herreweghe, Barbican - masterful subtlety proves more intriguing than compelling
Mathematical elegance as an intrinsic part of Bach's devotion
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
opera
The Merry Widow, Glyndebourne review - fun and frolics in the Embassy
Lehár upstaged but still triumphant
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
Ashton Celebrated, Royal Ballet review - peerless delights from the master step-smith
A delicious triple bill kicks off a worldwide Fred-fest
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
comedy
Rachel Parris, Leicester Square Theatre review - smart observations and satirical songs
Late Night Mash host on tour
Punt and Dennis, The Marlowe, Canterbury review - satire and sketches
Double act back on the road after a decade
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
Laura Aldridge / Andrew Sim, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh review - lightness and joy
Two Scottish artists explore childhood and play
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
latest comments
I could not agree more with the reviews of the...
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unbelievably awful! We too stayed on for the...
It is so sad and bad how jewish people suffered...
A remarkable series. With two episodes to watch,...
I made an error when first publishing this text,...
This really was a piano recital delivered as...