theartsdesk.com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Aleks Sierz |
Populist theatre really is a terrible flirt. You know the type of thing I mean: cheeky pursed lips, making eyes at the audience, strutting with a provocative wiggle. No need for…
Boyd Tonkin |
“How easily one thing grows into another,” sings abandoned Ariadne on her desert island before the advent of Bacchus quells her morbidity and rekindles her lust for life. In…
James Saynor |
Anyone who’s ever been to a movie set can’t help but struggle to reconcile the utter dismembered chaos of these workplaces with the smooth joined-up pseudo reality of the finished…
Bernard Hughes |
Jonn Elledge has two main virtues as a writer of general interest non-fiction: an insatiable curiosity about the world, and an ability to share the fruits of this curiosity like…
Thomas H. Green |
Almost 20 years ago, Late Of The Pier were an exciting post-nu-rave band who injected synthesizer sparkiness into indie. They even had a Top 30 album. They were a breath of fresh…
David Kettle |
Supposing: ★★★★★Sally fell down a hole outside the local theatre. Since then, things have changed. She just… knows things that other people don’t. But rather than being a…
Veronica Lee
Tom Read Wilson ★★★★Gilded Balloon MuseumTom Read Wilson has been plying his trade as an actor and singer for while but reality TV is where he has made his biggest impact –…
Kieron Tyler
“My Lost One”, Materia’s second track, is remarkable. Exemplifying the Julia Holter ethos to the max, it begins wispily with interweaving rippling electric piano figures, a…
Boyd Tonkin
After a century of trail-blazing Black musicians across every genre, it’s dumbfounding to discover that clarinettist Anthony McGill is the first African-American principal in the…
David Kettle
It’s been 35 years since Tony Kushner’s two-play, multi-hour epic gay soap opera-cum-spiritual meditation was first unleashed on the world in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And it…
Peter Culshaw
The latest in Peter Culshaw’s occasional radio shows with a global music bent is a post-WOMAD chat with one of its originators, who suggested the idea to his pal Peter Gabriel at…
David Nice
It's a reviewer's unkind luxury to moan about having to sit through yet another performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto simply to hear a rarer work; there will always be audience…
Adam Sweeting
You’re not going to catch Alan Ritchson playing King Lear at Stratford or doing Noël Coward at Chichester, but as an implacable warrior for truth, justice and the American way –…
Simon Thompson
The clue is in the name, I suppose. Revolución diamantina – Glitter revolution – was written in 2023 by Gabriela Ortiz (pictured below) as a response to violence against women in…
Veronica Lee
Matt FordePleasance Courtyard ★★★★Matt Forde is one of those comics Fringe-goers can rely to present a well-prepared and funny show, and Project Holy Moly is no exception. It’s…
David Nice
So much has vanished from my memory of the time I had a half-season Arena Proms pass back in 1982, but not the performance of Berlioz's Requiem (Grande Messe des Morts) with the…
David Kettle
Andrew O’Hagan’s 2020 novel Mayflies had a memorable television treatment in 2022, and a brand new stage adaptation – to which the writer has given his blessing – is one of the…
Thomas H. Green
Like electronica, metal is an umbrella term that contains multitudes of micro-genres. How do you fancy sludge, blackened crust or funeral doom? And that’s just scraping the…
Jonathan Geddes
Just over 24 hours before Idlewild stepped out at the Kelvingrove Bandstand, the much ballyhooed solar eclipse had proved a damp squib for much of Scotland, with cloudy weather…
disc of the day
Enlivened analogue synth-centred set that has its moments
tv
Alan Ritchson adds brain to brawn in the title role
John Hannah stars in smart and sun-drenched whodunnit
Taylor Sheridan's female CIA team bring the Ukraine conflict back home
film
A knowing American horror parody that’s all-self-consuming
Dinosaurs hunt Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor through suburbia
Vicky Krieps fights to see her son and find herself in a defining role
new music
Enlivened analogue synth-centred set that has its moments
When a new album is an adjunct of an old one
On the origins of WOMAD, music documentaries and Tarot
classical
A virtuoso clarinettist shines between two murder-ballets
Spanish cellist's Elgar goes deep, while Walton's Second Symphony glows and throbs
Ortiz glitters, Adès grips, Beethoven purrs
opera
Singers, and players, rise above some clunky moments in Strauss's meta-opera
Missy Mazzoli’s impressive new opera follows Wynton Marsalis' jazz symphony opening night
Michael Gallen's riveting music-theatre piece has committed performances all round
theatre
Exaggeration central: cartoon version of Mike Leigh classic arrives in the West End
Ancient Greek myth and a valedictory celebration in two plays at the Traverse Theatre
Ivo van Hove's radically stripped-back staging blurs fantasy and reality in Tony Kushner's epic
dance
Matthew Bourne’s 2000 hit revs up again with impressive dancers and a witty score
Marianela Nuñez celebrates 28 years at the company
A test of stamina for the audience as well as the dancers
comedy
Larky cabaret; smart musical comedy; and a blast of a debut
Political gags; absurdist fun; and a personal update
books
This wide-ranging miscellany combines urban history and geography to nerdily entertaining effect
David Thomson explores the dark side of cinema, but still offers a flicker of hope
Joyce lurks in the margins of his own biography in a detailed history of Irish politics
visual arts
Great American photographers all in one place
Four artists' films and a computer game speculate on societal collapse
A wild imagination outlined in miniature
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