theartsdesk.com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
theartsdesk |
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…
Helen Hawkins |
The writer of the edgy TV drama The Responder, Tony Schumacher, is back with an equally edgy but surprisingly warm-hearted story of people down on their luck in Liverpool. On…
Sarah Ruhl |
Perhaps fate led me inevitably to the theatre as a great love because my first kiss was in a scene study class when I was 14 years old. My scene partner and I were working on a…
Tim Cumming |
I first saw country singer songwriter Kacey Musgraves perform at the Arts Club on Dover Street back in 2013 for the launch of her first major-label album, Same Trailer Different…
Guy Oddy |
It is almost without fail that Birmingham’s Supersonic Festival is guaranteed to be one of my annual musical highlights – and despite it still only being April, I suspect that it…
Veronica Lee |
Scott Bennett is a busy guy at the moment, touring as he is with not one, but two shows; Blood Sugar Baby, a personal piece of storytelling about a family medical ordeal, and…
Helen Hawkins
David Pearson’s debut play, Firewing, part of Hampstead Theatre’s INSPIRE project for emerging writers, is a heartfelt two-hander about the importance of passing stuff on.“Stuff”…
Flora Wilson Brown
How do you adapt a book like The Waves? A terrifying idea, and one I could not get out of my brain, from the moment the director Jùlia Levai asked if I had ever considered doing…
Adam Sweeting
Sky Atlantic’s new thriller, Prisoner, is a tense and twisty story involving a sinister crime syndicate called Pegasus, whose boss is a sneery tycoon called Harrison Dempsey. This…
Boyd Tonkin
In the delirious and exhilarating Sephardic dance that finished their concert devoted to the Jewish, Muslim and Christian music of Jerusalem, one of the Apollo’s Fire fiddlers…
James Saynor
We tend to indulge hagiography when it comes to biopics of pop icons. To get the rights to their music, producers often have to let the icons themselves pull the strings. It’s a…
Kieron Tyler
Ostensibly, Jesca Hoop’s music is categorised as folk. How to square this with “Big Storm,” the fourth track from the singer-songwriter’s seventh album, Long Wave Home? The…
Robert Beale
There are few concert experiences as satisfying as hearing cornerstone works of the Romantic repertoire played with energy, commitment and panache, which is what Saturday’s BBC…
David Nice
Before last night's still-shocking saga of a downtrodden soul began, Southbank Artistic Director Mark Ball came on to tell us that while concerts were mere events, Multitudes, "…
Guy Oddy
It must be exhausting to be a member of Belfast hip-hop crew, Kneecap. Having already recorded a debut album and fistful of fine singles like “H.O.O.D.” and “Get Your Brits Out”…
Nick Hasted
In Mark Jenkin’s Cornish cinema, lost boats, drowned men and ways of life wash back in with the tide, nothing truly gone. Where his feature debut Bait (2019) tackled the violence…
Kieron Tyler
Last year, Paul Weller compiled a collection of his favourite soul tracks. A highlight of That Sweet Sweet Music was Jon Lucien’s affecting “Search for the Inner Self.” Originally…
aleks.sierz
Decades are never neat: they don’t simply go from 1 to 10, or 0 to 9. So it is with the Swinging Sixties, which actually began – like sexual intercourse for poet Philip Larkin –…
Rachel Halliburton
I have to confess, I hadn’t been sure what to expect when I heard about The Art of Fugue staged with acrobats. This latest collaborative experiment in the Southbank Centre’s…
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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
Sheridan Smith and Michael Sorcha prove a winning team in this unexpected treat
... as well as Ridley Scott, Jacques Audiard, Julia Ducourneau and Charles Aznavour
Charlotte Regan's genre-jumping drama defies categorisation
film
... as well as Ridley Scott, Jacques Audiard, Julia Ducourneau and Charles Aznavour
A sleaze-free celebration of Michael Jackson before the fall
A fishing boat falls through time in Mark Jenkin's immersive, haunted tale
new music
A post break-up album, packed with real life, real good times, and real hurt
Drones and noise and mellow folkie flavours make for a fine weekend
Salvation Army band dynamics, a country music lilt and more
classical
Uplifting celebrations of musical kinship across cultures
Romantic cornerstones shine alongside Julia Wolfe’s document of trauma
Circa's acrobatics bracingly express a philosophical idea of the body
opera
Berg's queasy setting of a visionary play as you never quite heard or saw it before
Love among the chills in Bartók’s House of Horrors
Gerald Barry's Salome, NSO Ireland, Kuhn, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - funny-queasy genius
Paradoxically both ordered and wild(e), with weird twists and superb performances
theatre
Ruhl's Off Broadway play 'Stage Kiss' is coming to the Hampstead Theatre
David Pearson's first play focuses on inadequate father-son relationships
'The Waves' reaches the shore once again, this time at Jermyn Street Theatre
dance
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Body & Soul, English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells review - a surefire hit and an absolute plonker
Getting it very right and very wrong in this contemporary double bill
After 25 years and counting, Cassa Pancho's fine company remains essential
comedy
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
The character comic looks back at his career
books
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
The last surviving member of Beyond the Fringe never ceases to engage
A small-scale journey through literary afterlives unveils a world of wonders
visual arts
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
An artist who has lost her way
Gorgeous paintings in search of belonging
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