sat 02/11/2024

theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews

Theartsdesk
Sunday, 01 December 2024
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...
Helen Hawkins
Saturday, 02 November 2024
It’s 1648 in Agra, and an excitable young guardsman has come up with an idea: a giant flying platform that he calls an “aeroplat”. As he might slide off it in transit, for good...
Saskia Baron
Saturday, 02 November 2024
Anora has had so much hype since it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in May that it doesn’t really need another reviewer weighing in. Sean Baker has crafted a high-velocity drama in...
Rachel Halliburton
Saturday, 02 November 2024
Last time I saw the lovelorn Cyclops from Handel’s richly turbulent cantata, Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, he was in a warehouse at Trinity Buoy Wharf earlier this year, posturing...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 01 November 2024
Director Thom Zimny has become the audio-visual Boswell to Bruce Springsteen’s Samuel Johnson, having made documentaries about the making of Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge...
Graham Fuller
Friday, 01 November 2024
Blitz, set on a vast CGI canvas in September 1941, is an improbable boy’s adventure tale that depicts the misery and terror that was inflicted on East Londoners by Germany’s eight...
Aleks Sierz
Friday, 01 November 2024
Hanif Kureishi’s 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia begins like this: “My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and...
Demetrios Matheou
Friday, 01 November 2024
There’s much to note and commend about Small Things Like These, a sensitive, gorgeously shot and moving adaptation of...
Tim Cumming
Friday, 01 November 2024
Well, seems like only yesterday when I reviewed Willie Nelson’s last album, Borderline, an excellent set from the man’s...
Boyd Tonkin
Thursday, 31 October 2024
How we used to mock those stuck-in-the-mud opera houses that wheeled out the same moth-eaten production of some box-office...
Gary Naylor
Thursday, 31 October 2024
It is unsurprising to learn in the post-show Q&A that each audience receives Jonathan Maitland’s new play based on his...
Joe Muggs
Thursday, 31 October 2024
Could melancholia be an elixir of creative youth? Or is it that sad people were never really that youthful, so age suits...
Helen Hawkins
Wednesday, 30 October 2024
All three seasons of Industry are now on iPlayer, and after watching the most recent one and then backtracking for another...
David Nice
Wednesday, 30 October 2024
Name three operas framing dramas within, and you’d probably come up with Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Strauss’s Ariadne auf...
Rachel Halliburton
Wednesday, 30 October 2024
Even by Stanley Kubrick’s standards, Dr Strangelove went through an extraordinary evolutionary process. After starting it...
Guy Oddy
Wednesday, 30 October 2024
That Peter Perrett is still alive after the decades of bad habits that he inflicted on himself must be something of a...
Bernard Hughes
Tuesday, 29 October 2024
Anyone who has been on a British train in the last ten years will have been irritated to distraction by the inane and...
Hugh Barnes
Tuesday, 29 October 2024
Towards the end of the last century, the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar made a run of screwball comedies, starting with...
Jim Bob
Tuesday, 29 October 2024
For a few months a couple of years ago, when you googled the name Jim Bob, although you’d get a lot of information about me...

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CLASSICAL CDS A great pianist bows out, plus two cello discs and a new organ's first outing

★★★★ KIRI PRITCHARD-MCLEAN, BRIGHTON DOME A foster carer's tale

★★★★ INDUSTRY, BBC ONE Bold, addictive saga about corporate culture now

BOOK EXTRACT: JIM BOB A chapter from his new book 'Where Songs Come From', a combined autobiography, lyrical overview and love letter to London

★★★★★ HALLE, WONG, BRIDGEWATER HALL, MANCHESTER Bruckner’s Ninth completed

★★ THE ROOM NEXT DOOR Almodóvar out of his comfort zone

disc of the day

Album: Willie Nelson - Last Leaf on the Tree

The 91-year-old’s 153rd album is more than a farewell to arms – it’s a late-career classic

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

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Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Disney+ review - the Boss grows older defiantly

Thom Zimny's film reels in 50 years of New Jersey's most famous export

Industry, BBC One review - bold, addictive saga about corporate culture now

Third season of the tale of investment bankers reaches a satisfying climax

film

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Anora review - life lesson for a kick-ass sex worker

Sean Baker's bracing Palme d'Or winner twists, turns, and makes a star of Mikey Madison

Blitz review - racism persists as bombs batter London

Steve McQueen's overwought World War Two boy's adventure film delivers its message

new music

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Album: Willie Nelson - Last Leaf on the Tree

The 91-year-old’s 153rd album is more than a farewell to arms – it’s a late-career classic

Album: The Cure - Songs of a Lost World

Sadness and finality have rarely felt so life-affirming

opera

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Rigoletto, English National Opera review - another hit for Miller's Mob

More tragic than gimmicky, this classic staging can still succeed

theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - let's make three operas

Donizetti triumphs, with help from Bernstein, Rossini, two stars and director Orpha Phelan

theatre

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Guards at the Taj, Orange Tree Theatre review - miniature marvel with rich resonances
Rajiv Joseph’s play pitting beauty against duty gets an impressive staging
The Buddha of Suburbia, Barbican Theatre review - farcical fun, but what about the issues?
Hanif Kureishi classic gets a compulsively comic makeover from Emma Rice

dance

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Encounters, Royal Ballet review - exciting mixed bill with a gem of a premiere

Pam Tanowitz's latest piece is a stunner that larkily subverts the rules

National Ballet of Canada, Sadler's Wells review - see this, and know what dance can do

Yet again, Crystal Pite proves herself a ferocious creative force, alongside fellow Canadian exports James Kudelka and Emma Portner

comedy

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Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Brighton Dome review - a foster carer's tale

Comic skilfully melds a personal story with sharp social commentary

Rose Matafeo, Arcola Theatre review - Starstruck star muses on love

Kiwi comic on dating, phone apps and Taylor Swift

Books

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Jonathan Coe: The Proof of My Innocence review - a whodunnit with a difference

Political satire, social observation and literary artifice elevate this ostensibly 'cosy crime' caper

theartsdesk Q&A: Anna Bogutskaya on her new book about the past decade of horror cinema

In time for Halloween, the author discusses 'Feeding the Monster' - and why she thinks horror cinema has entered a new phase

visual arts

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Vanessa Bell, MK Gallery review - diving into and out of abstraction

A variation of styles as the Bloomsbury artist breaks free from Victorian mores

latest comments

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