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Theartsdesk
Wednesday, 01 October 2025
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.It followed some hectic and intensive months when a disparate and eclectic...
Lauren Mooney
Thursday, 06 February 2025
It started with a Guardian long-read. I’m ashamed to admit it since so many shows could say the same, but that was the beginning.It was the summer of 2022, and James [Yeatman] and...
Alexandra Coghlan
Thursday, 06 February 2025
Who’s in and who’s not – on the secret, the joke, the relationship, the family, the club? That’s the fulcrum of Joe Hill-Gibbins’ ingeniously simple Figaro for English National...
Demetrios Matheou
Thursday, 06 February 2025
There’s a common understanding about journalists, especially ones at the top of their game, that they’re flying by the seat of their pants – propelled by adrenalin, deadlines,...
Helen Hawkins
Thursday, 06 February 2025
The opening scene of the Old Vic’s Oedipus is dominated by a giant backdrop of a skull-like face, eyes shut and rock-like. It belongs to the actor playing Oedipus, presumably,...
Guy Oddy
Thursday, 06 February 2025
It was only six months ago that Hifi Sean and David McAlmont released their Daylight album. A fine disc of summery dance pop that was enough to put the spring in anyone’s step.Now...
Gary Naylor
Wednesday, 05 February 2025
Your response to Barney Norris’s one-man play, based on David Foenkinos’s bestselling novel as translated by Megan Jones,...
Peter Culshaw
Wednesday, 05 February 2025
The latest in Peter Culshaw’s peripatetic radio shows is a conversation with Joe Boyd whose recent tome, published by Faber...
Gary Naylor
Wednesday, 05 February 2025
The phenomenal global success of Six began when two young writers decided to give voices to the wives of a powerful man,...
Joe Muggs
Wednesday, 05 February 2025
Is there such a thing as a boundary between pop and alternative any more? The presence of strange characters like Chappell...
Jenny Gilbert
Tuesday, 04 February 2025
It would be hard to find an antihero more anti than Eugene Onegin. The protagonist of Alexander Pushkin’s long verse novel...
Aleks Sierz
Tuesday, 04 February 2025
In a world tainted with racism and homophobia, the Bush Theatre is something of a refuge from prejudice. As one of the most...
Nick Hasted
Tuesday, 04 February 2025
Kurosawa’s 1949 thriller probes post-war morality in a Tokyo whose ruins and US occupation mostly remain just out of shot,...
Miranda Heggie
Tuesday, 04 February 2025
What a delight to see an almost full Queen’s Hall for a programme solely of contemporary music. The Scottish Chamber...
Adam Sweeting
Monday, 03 February 2025
It’s been 50 years since the USA bowed to the inevitable and pulled out of Vietnam, in the midst of harrowing scenes of...
Robert Beale
Monday, 03 February 2025
Saturday night could have given us the opportunity to witness the Opera North debut of Canadian soprano Layla Claire at the...
Gary Naylor
Monday, 03 February 2025
If you saw Upstart Crow on television or on stage in the West End, you’ll know the schtick of Sheldon Epps’ dazzling show...
Veronica Lee
Monday, 03 February 2025
At the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe, Amy Gledhill won best show for Make Me Look Fit on the Poster, ostensibly a cheery collection...
Tom Carr
Monday, 03 February 2025
You could be easily forgiven for thinking that the young indie rockers, Inhaler, would stick to the formula that has already...
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disc of the day
Album: Hifi Sean & David McAlmont - Twilight
Indie veterans burrow deeper into their new electronica-flavoured guise
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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
Vietnam: The War That Changed America, Apple TV+ review - painful and poignant stories from a terrible conflict
Fifty years later, the wounds still haven't healed
Paradise, Disney+ review - enigmatic drama with an unknown destination
Dan Fogelman's new series has an excellent cast but a recycled premise
Brian and Maggie, Channel 4 review - Thatcherism's date with TV destiny
James Graham's dramatisation of Brian Walden's fateful 1989 interview
film
September 5 review - gripping real-life thriller
The ground-breaking, if flawed media coverage of the 1972 Munich massacre
Blu-ray: Stray Dog
Kurosawa's post-war Tokyo noir gleans societal guilt as a cop hunts his purloined pistol
Hard Truths review - a bravura, hyperreal performance from Marianne Jean-Baptiste
Grudges and gloom offset by love and support make for an unsettling mix
new music
Album: Hifi Sean & David McAlmont - Twilight
Indie veterans burrow deeper into their new electronica-flavoured guise
theartsdesk Radio Show 36 - legendary producer Joe Boyd discusses his recent book on global music
From being producer of Pink Floyd and Nick Drake to running an influential global music label
classical
Nakariakov, SCO, Emelyanychev, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh review - a frenzied feast of contemporary classics
'New Dimensions' concerts continue to flourish
Biss, BBCSO, Hrůša, Barbican review - electrifying Shostakovich at a crucial time
The Royal Opera's next music director achieves blazing results in a rich programme
BBC Singers, Aurora Orchestra, Collon, Kings Place review - on the way to heaven via King's Cross
Intimate settings for a musical journey towards bliss
opera
The Marriage of Figaro, English National Opera review - long on laughs, short on kerb appeal
Laugh-out-loud funny revival of an ingenious staging
The Flying Dutchman, Opera North review - a director’s take on Wagner
Annabel Arden offers the Great Disruptor as archetype of the stateless and voiceless
theatre
First Person: writer Lauren Mooney on bringing bodies together in the new Royal Court play, 'More Life'
Kandinsky Theatre co-creator on a new play tethering technology to existence
Oedipus, Old Vic review - disappointing leads in a production of two halves
Is it a dance piece with added text, or a stripped down play with excess choreography?
Second Best, Riverside Studios review - Asa Butterfield brings the magic
Martin is not Harry Potter in the movies, then might be in real life, but proves to be the boy who survived
dance
Onegin, Royal Ballet review - a poignant lesson about the perils of youth
John Cranko was the greatest choreographer British ballet never had. His masterpiece is now 60 years old
Northern Ballet: Three Short Ballets, Linbury Theatre review - thrilling dancing in a mix of styles
The Leeds-based company act as impressively as they dance
comedy
Amy Gledhill, Soho Theatre review - delightfully bawdy take on serious subjects
Best show winner at the Edinburgh Fringe
Russell Howard Live at the Palladium review - feelgood philosophy with added smut
Special recording available to download
Books
Catherine Airey: Confessions review - the crossroads we bear
Family trauma repeats in this deftly strange exploration of roads not taken
Best of 2024: Books
As 2024 comes to an end, we look back at the books that have thrilled and enthralled us
visual arts
Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet, Tate Modern review - an exhaustive and exhausting show
Flashing lights, beeps and buzzes are diverting, but quickly pall
latest comments
In my opinion, after having read this book, Bad...
I agree. The Shostakovich, in particular,...
never ever make a critisim about an album no more...
This is by far the worst review i've seen this...
Yes, I aboslutely agree with this review, while...
I've only just read this. I can promise you, re...
very superficial review.
It's 'Martyn Bennett' with two ts, though....