theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Adam Sweeting
Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Ludicrous plotting and a tangled skein of coincidences hold no terrors for the makers of this frequently baffling French drama. Nonetheless, its story of a bizarre cult, a...
Aleks Sierz
Tuesday, 16 April 2024
I’ve never been one for school reunions, but even if I had kept in touch with former classmates I think that American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s The Comeuppance might,...
Thomas H Green
Tuesday, 16 April 2024
VINYL OF THE MONTHLondon Afrobeat Collective Esengo (Canopy)The weather has not been kind to the UK lately, pelting it daily with endless drizzle and gloom. So wrap your ears...
India Lewis
Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Artist and writer, Heather McCalden, has produced her first book-length work. The Observable Universe examines, variously, her familial history, the death of her parents to AIDS,...
Gary Naylor
Monday, 15 April 2024
Lockdown feels more like a dream now: empty streets; bright, scarless skies; pan-banging at 8pm. Did it all happen? One part of our brains insists that it did; another resists...
Helen Hawkins
Monday, 15 April 2024
Shakespeare’s plays have ever been meat for masher-uppers, from the bowdlerising Victorians to the modern filmed-theatre cycles of Ivo Van Hove. And Sir John Falstaff, as Orson...
Thomas H Green
Monday, 15 April 2024
At a time when conflicts in the Middle East are reaching fever pitch, Emel Mathlouthi represents hope. Her new album MRA, is...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 14 April 2024
Brazzaville is on the north side of the Congo River. It is the capital of the Republic of the Congo. Kinshasa is on the...
Joseph Middleton
Saturday, 13 April 2024
Everyone needs friends and everything is connected. As we throw the doors open on to the 2024 Leeds Lieder Festival I am...
Katie Colombus
Saturday, 13 April 2024
For a singer so often sampled in electronic dance music, it’s a high-end twist to replace synth, claps and bass drum with...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 13 April 2024
Beethoven: Symphonies 1-9 National Symphony Orchestra/Gianandrea Noseda (NSO)I’m old enough to remember the BBC...
Guy Oddy
Saturday, 13 April 2024
After a long period of relative inactivity, the last five years has had A Certain Ratio getting the bit between their teeth...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 12 April 2024
Sam Taylor-Johnson has fashioned her biopic of Amy Winehouse with great care and affection, but sometimes, as she shows her...
David Nice
Friday, 12 April 2024
Purple patches flourished in the first half of this admirable programme: it could hardly have been otherwise given Sheku...
Veronica Lee
Friday, 12 April 2024
Spoofing movies or movie genres has been done before, but Six Chick Flicks goes the extra mile. It's a funny, frenetic and...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 12 April 2024
Alex Garland’s fourth movie as writer/director is a chilling glimpse of an American dystopia, fortuitously timed for the run...
Graham Rickson
Friday, 12 April 2024
The Teachers’ Lounge should really have been translated into English as The Staffroom, but that’s a minor gripe. Focussing...
Tom Carr
Friday, 12 April 2024
For the past almost two years, Maggie Rogers has taken an unexpectedly special place in my heart and musical tastes. Upon...
Boyd Tonkin
Thursday, 11 April 2024
“Site-specific” performance locations rarely come more atmospheric, or evocative, than this one. Beyond the East India Dock...
disc of the day
Album: EMEL - MRA
Tunisian-American singer's latest is fired with feminism and global electro-pop maximalism
tv
Anthracite, Netflix review - murderous mysteries in the French Alps
Who can unravel the ghastly secrets of the town of Lévionna?
Ripley, Netflix review - Highsmith's horribly fascinating sociopath adrift in a sea of noir
Its black and white cinematography is striking, but eventually wearying
Scoop, Netflix review - revisiting a Right Royal nightmare
Gripping dramatisation of Newsnight's fateful Prince Andrew interview
film
Back to Black review - rock biopic with a loving but soft touch
Marisa Abela evokes the genius of Amy Winehouse, with a few warts minimised
The Teachers' Lounge - teacher-pupil relationships under the microscope
Thoughtful, painful meditation on status, crime, and power
new music
theartsdesk on Vinyl 83: Deep Purple, Annie Anxiety, Ghetts, WHAM!, Kaiser Chiefs, Butthole Surfers and more
The most wide-ranging regular record reviews in this galaxy
Album: EMEL - MRA
Tunisian-American singer's latest is fired with feminism and global electro-pop maximalism
Music Reissues Weekly: Congo Funk! - Sound Madness From The Shores Of The Mighty Congo River
Assiduous exploration of the interconnected musical ecosystems of Brazzaville and Kinshasa
classical
First Person: Leeds Lieder Festival director and pianist Joseph Middleton on a beloved organisation back from the brink
Arts Council funding restored after the blow of 2023, new paths are being forged
Classical CDs: Nymphs, magots and buckgoats
Epic symphonies, popular music from 17th century London and an engrossing tribute to a great Spanish pianist
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Philharmonia Chorus, RPO, Petrenko, RFH review - poetic cello, blazing chorus
Atmospheric Elgar and Weinberg, but Rachmaninov's 'The Bells' takes the palm
opera
Aci by the River, London Handel Festival, Trinity Buoy Wharf Lighthouse review - myths for the #MeToo age
Star singers shine in a Handel rarity
Carmen, Royal Opera review - strong women, no sexual chemistry and little stage focus
Damiano Michieletto's new production of Bizet’s masterpiece is surprisingly invertebrate
La scala di seta, RNCM review - going heavy on the absinthe?
Rossini’s one-acter helps young performers find their talents to amuse
theatre
The Comeuppance, Almeida Theatre review - remembering high-school high jinks
Latest from American penman Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is less than the sum of its parts
Player Kings, Noel Coward Theatre review - inventive showcase for a peerless theatrical knight
Ian McKellen's Falstaff thrives in Robert Icke's entertaining remix of the Henry IV plays
Cassie and the Lights, Southwark Playhouse review - powerful, affecting, beautifully acted tale of three sisters in care
Heart-rending chronicle of difficult, damaged lives that refuses to provide glib answers
dance
MacMillan Celebrated, Royal Ballet review - out of mothballs, three vintage works to marvel at
Less-known pieces spanning the career of a great choreographer underline his greatness
Carmen, English National Ballet review - lots of energy, even violence, but nothing new to say
Johan Inger's take on Carmen tries but fails to make a point about male violence
WAKE, National Stadium, Dublin review - a rainbow river of dance, song, and so much else
THISISPOPBABY serves up a joyous tapestry of Ireland contemporary and traditional
comedy
Spencer Jones: Making Friends, Soho Theatre review - award-winning comedian mines his post-lockdown escape to the country
If big chickens scare you, this is your thing!
Six Chick Flicks, Leicester Square Theatre review - funny, frenetic and feminist spoof
Whip-smart parody of the genre
Pierre Novellie, Soho Theatre review - turning a heckle into a show
Thoughtful take on neurodivergence
Books
Heather McCalden: The Observable Universe review - reflections from a damaged life
An artist pens a genre-spanning work of tender inconclusiveness
Dorian Lynskey: Everything Must Go review - it's the end of the world as we know it
Authoritative account of how the apocalypse has always been just around the corner
Andrew O'Hagan: Caledonian Road review - London's Dickensian return
Grotesque and insightful, O’Hagan’s broad cast of characters illuminates a city’s iniquities
visual arts
Jane Harris: Ellipse, Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, Bordeaux review - ovals to the fore
Persistence and conviction in the works of the late English painter
Sargent and Fashion, Tate Britain review - portraiture as a performance
London’s elite posing dressed up to the nines
Zineb Sedira: Dreams Have No Titles, Whitechapel Gallery review - a disorientating mix of fact and fiction
An exhibition that begs the question 'What and where is home?'
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