theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 07 March 2021
The Viscaynes ought to have been a footnote. A minor footnote. From Vallejo in north California, they were one amongst many early Sixties vocal groups giving it a shot. Some were...
Graham Fuller
Sunday, 07 March 2021
Her glory years as the muse of Josef von Sternberg long gone, Marlene Dietrich had been labelled “box-office poison” and was sulking on the French Riviera when the producer Joe...
Demetrios Matheou
Saturday, 06 March 2021
Hot on the heels of her 2019 triumph Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma’s fifth feature continues a perfect track record; this is yet another gorgeous and perceptive...
Tom Birchenough
Saturday, 06 March 2021
Joerg and Anna Winger’s gripping drama of East Germany, a loose portrait set over the final decade of that country’s existence, has reached its culmination, and this first episode...
Saskia Baron
Saturday, 06 March 2021
There was always something a little diffident about teenage Marion Elliott-Said, who created her on-stage persona Poly Styrene after putting together her band X-Ray Spex from a...
Thomas H Green
Saturday, 06 March 2021
The debut album by Australian-Ghanaian artist Genesis Owusu is so musically restless it’s exhilarating. What’s clear is this guy doesn’t want to be placed in a box, marked hip hop...
David Nice
Friday, 05 March 2021
In amongst the heavy-hearted duty of supporting orchestras by watching their concert streamings – not something I’d do by...
Veronica Lee
Friday, 05 March 2021
Eddie Murphy – one of the biggest stars of the 1980s – has taken his time in making a sequel to the enormously successful...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 05 March 2021
Can a film be both too long and too short? If so, Into the Darkness definitely fits the bill. Anders Refn’s long-...
Katie Colombus
Thursday, 04 March 2021
Best known for winning Sweden's version of Got Talent, at the tender age of 10, Zara Larsson is a shining example of a...
Jessica Duchen
Thursday, 04 March 2021
A word about grief. Many of us have learned a lot about it this past year; many knew about it before that. When someone we...
Demetrios Matheou
Thursday, 04 March 2021
The Romanian director Radu Jude invariably serves spicy satire that challenges his compatriots to face historical crimes and...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 04 March 2021
Admittedly, Antarctic explorer Captain Scott was at the other end of the earth from the protagonists of The Terror (BBC Two...
Barney Harsent
Thursday, 04 March 2021
Over the course of seven albums and nearly two decades, Kings of Leon have gone from spiky, short bursts of adrenaline-...
Matt Wolf
Wednesday, 03 March 2021
A teen comedy with a thematic difference, Moxie has enough memorable moments to firmly establish comedian Amy Poehler as a...
Adam Sweeting
Wednesday, 03 March 2021
Nice to find Bryan Cranston taking the lead in a TV series again (this is his first since Breaking Bad ended in 2013), and...
Marina Vaizey
Wednesday, 03 March 2021
Pioneering is an attractive adjective in this context, alerting the spectator to what has been, over the past half century,...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Wednesday, 03 March 2021
Shortly after Arab Strap split up in 2006, Malcolm Middleton was quoted saying “I don’t think we should ever get back...
Boyd Tonkin
Tuesday, 02 March 2021
Beatrice Blackwood had lived in a clifftop village between surf and jungle on Bougainville Island, part of the Solomon...
disc of the day
Blu-ray: Marlene Dietrich at Universal 1940-1942
Four films that tested the star's durability with the American public
tv
Deutschland 89, Channel 4 review - the Wall comes down, what next?
Compulsive start to final series of the East German spy drama that's much more
The Terror, BBC Two review - nightmare in the Arctic wastes
Powerful cast in doomed search for the Northwest Passage
Your Honor, Sky Atlantic review - Bryan Cranston suffers fear and loathing in New Orleans
A road accident sets off a terrifying chain of events
film
Blu-ray: Marlene Dietrich at Universal 1940-1942
Four films that tested the star's durability with the American public
Berlinale 2021: Petite Maman review – magical musings on the parent-child relationship
Céline Sciamma continues her startling run of perfect films, plus Daniel Bruhl’s black comedy ‘Next Door’ and the tricksy ‘A Cop Movie’ from Mexico
Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliche review - memorialising her mother
Documentary portrait of a punk legend who struggled with fame
new music
Reissue CDs Weekly: Sly & The Viscaynes - Yellow Moon The Complete Recordings 1961-1962
Historically important collection of Sly Stone’s musical baby pictures
Album: Genesis Owusu - Smiling With No Teeth
Debut by new talent from Australia is a charismatic and multiform ride
classical
Two LSO concerts on Marquee TV review - vibrant triptyches
Oboist Juliana Koch has fellow players for audience in the highlight of more filmed events
Gillam, Manchester Camerata, Kuusisto, Stoller Hall online review - calm and exhilaration
Time stands still and enthusiasm cheers the spirits in a concert for the present
‘The Healing Power of Music’: composer Nigel Hess on great-aunt Myra’s wartime concerts
Parallels between lockdown solace and a great Dame's National Gallery events
opera
Die tote Stadt, Komische Oper Berlin, OperaVision review – when catharsis goes missing
Robert Carsen's production of Korngold's impassioned opera doesn't ring all the bells
Tony and the Young Artists, Royal Opera/Liebeslieder Waltzes, Blackheath Halls online review - love and joy
Much-needed platforms for talented youth to make its way in difficult times
Der Freischütz, Bavarian State Opera online review – marksmen as marketeers
Tcherniakov’s staging heightens the psychological drama, but his feminist angle falls flat
theatre
Typical, Soho Theatre online review - powerfully poetic and painful
Film version of 2019 monologue about institutional racism is brilliant
Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Hung Parliament review – choose-your-own whodunnit
Playful interactive show casts audience members as amateur detectives
Barnes' People, Original Theatre Company online review - intriguing quartet of monologues revived
Jemma Redgrave and Adrian Scarborough excel in Peter Barnes radio solos brought to screen
dance
The Nutcracker: an end-of-year obituary
It's been a rough ride for the seasonal cash cow. Here's how ballet companies coped
The Seven Deadly Sins, Opera North online review - viscerally thrilling
Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's indictment of capitalism in a vibrant new production
comedy
Rachel Parris and Marcus Brigstocke's Tuesday Night Club review - daft and good-hearted
Lockdown fun has taken on a life of its own
First Night Funnies, Leicester Comedy Festival review - uneven start to 2021's online gathering
Sikisa was a charming and ebullient host
Books
Frances Larson: Undreamed Shores review - journeys without maps
How the first female anthropologists found freedom far from home
Joseph Andras: Tomorrow They Won't Dare to Murder Us review - injustice and tenderness in the Algerian War
This thriller-ish debut revives the only European executed in the French-Algerian conflict
Karla Suárez: Havana Year Zero review - maths, phones and mysteries in down-at-heel Cuba
A smart, romantic romp through the island's darkest days
visual arts
Pioneering Women, Oxford Ceramics Gallery online review - domestic pleasures
A survey of female potters explores ancient ubiquity and the allure of pure form
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Tate Britain review - enigmatic figures full of life
When is a painting not a portrait?
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