theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Veronica Lee
Tuesday, 19 November 2019
Stewart Lee is back on the road after three years, and he comes back wonderfully refreshed and on marvellous form with this double header, Tornado/Snowflake.Tornado, the first...
Markie Robson-Scott
Monday, 18 November 2019
“Talking cures and exploring the darkness of men’s souls – are you sure this is a career for a gentleman?” This is Vienna, 1906. Freud is exerting an influence, to the disapproval...
Sebastian Scotney
Monday, 18 November 2019
When it comes to the true jazz legends capable of filling concert halls with faithful fans, whom jazz festival programmers can put on as headliners, the choice is dwindling....
Adam Sweeting
Monday, 18 November 2019
Although it conforms to a realistic chronology of events, this third season of Peter Morgan’s remarkable voyage around the House of Windsor (on Netflix) has the feel of a sequence...
Rachel Halliburton
Monday, 18 November 2019
How do you begin to dramatise one of the most extraordinary conversations of the 20th century between two of its most charismatic and complex intellectuals? When the philosopher,...
David Nice
Monday, 18 November 2019
If you're going to run a music festival with flair, it's not enough just to have a run of star performers who pop up for single events. The 11th Wimbledon International Music...
Owen Richards
Monday, 18 November 2019
Beck stands on the front cover of his new album Hyperspace with a vintage Toyota and Japanese text resplendent above. It’s...
Theartsdesk
Sunday, 17 November 2019
There are films to meet every taste in theartsdesk's guide to the best movies currently on release. In our considered...
Sebastian Scotney
Sunday, 17 November 2019
People who derive comfort from Classic FM’s strapline that European classical music is “The World's Greatest Music" are...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 17 November 2019
In a first for this column, what’s cropping up is a cassette reissue. The Clash’s third album is so familiar, going into...
Peter Quinn
Saturday, 16 November 2019
Jazz Voice unfailingly supplies a gigantic sugar-rush of auditory pleasure, and this year’s edition was no exception....
Boyd Tonkin
Saturday, 16 November 2019
Like almost everything that it touches these days, English National Opera’s autumn season of shows rooted in the Orpheus...
Jasper Rees
Saturday, 16 November 2019
In Peru in 1985, Joe Simpson - then 25 - and his 21-year-old climbing partner Simon Yates were descending the remote Siula...
Joseph Walsh
Saturday, 16 November 2019
It should come as no surprise that the writer of Side Effects and Contagion, Scott Z. Burns, is capable of...
Katherine Waters
Saturday, 16 November 2019
My friend, let’s call her Kit, is having a rubbish time. Kat (that’s me) is too. If life’s got a flavour, it’s a shade...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 16 November 2019
Donnacha Dennehy: The Hunger Alarm Will Sound/Alan Pierson, with Katherine Manley and Iarla Ó Lionáird (Nonesuch)The...
Kieron Tyler
Saturday, 16 November 2019
The contemporary context of the Netherlands’s Iguana Death Cult is clear. Their blues-edged garage rock exists in a...
Katherine Waters
Friday, 15 November 2019
For a loved one to die by suicide provokes both pain and hurt. Pain, because they are gone. Hurt, because it can feel like...
Jill Chuah Masters
Friday, 15 November 2019
Channel 4’s The Accident closed with a bang and a whimper. Jack Thorne provided a definitive answer to his series’ central...
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tv
Vienna Blood, BBC Two review - psychoanalysis and murder in turn-of-the-century Vienna
Set in a thrilling era, Steve Thompson's adaptation of Frank Tallis's Liebermann novels fails to excite
The Crown, Series 3, Netflix review - if you want binge TV, there's none finer
Peter Morgan's royal saga has a new cast as the Windsors negotiate the turbulent 1960s
The Accident, Series Finale, Channel 4 review - ambitious mini-series leaves many unanswered questions
Jack Thorne’s tragic drama aims to give us closure, but is hampered by flat and unconvincing characters
film
Marriage Story review - superior weepie
Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver prove a perfect match as an imperfect couple
new music
Herbie Hancock, Barbican EFG London Jazz Festival review – the musical chameleon is still searching at 79
Despite some longueurs, the multi-skilled bandleader remains an irresistibly joyful force
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Clash - London Calling
The cassette rematerialises for the 40th anniversary of Strummer and co’s breakthrough double album
classical
O/Modernt Soloists, Sonoro Ensemble, Wimbledon International Music Festival review - pure instrumental poetry
Hugo Ticciati programmes superbly, but the choral side lets the peerless players down
Classical CDs Weekly: Donnacha Dennehy, Handel, Strauss
Historical and Biblical tragedies set to music, plus three character-driven tone poems
Wegener, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review – on the revolutionary road to Mahler
How to blow away the schmaltz, and recover the shock, of an iconic work
opera
Orphée, English National Opera review – through a screen darkly
Matters of life and death reflected in Glass and Cocteau's myth
Mrs Peachum's Guide to Love and Marriage, Mid Wales Opera review - scaled down seediness, with a swing
Toxic femininity takes centre stage in the outrageous essence of The Beggar's Opera
Der Freischütz, Barbican review - Gothic chills rooted in flesh and earth
Two outstanding leads make for a memorable concert-staging
theatre
Stray Dogs, Park Theatre review – no fire in this historic encounter
The script misses all that was distinctive about Berlin and Akhmatova's meeting
'By the end I’d lost me': Joe Simpson, mountaineer and writer - interview
The story of Touching the Void has been told and retold. Its author explores its appeal
Touching the Void, Duke of York's Theatre review - not quite high enough
David Greig's much-lauded mountaineering story doesn't quite peak
dance
Natalia Osipova: Pure Dance, Sadler's Wells review - a great ballerina branches out, again
This off-piste excursion is no vanity project
Concerto/Enigma Variations/Raymonda Act III, Royal Ballet review - time to cheer the corps de ballet
Three revivals from the mid-Sixties allow the rank and file to shine
The deathless Alicia Alonso, in person
Remembering the woman who was Cuban ballet's legend and monster
comedy
Stewart Lee: Tornado/Snowflake, Leicester Square Theatre review - snark to Sharknado
Double bill from the king of sarcasm
Jack Dee, Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage review - now he really is a grumpy old man
Observational comic has grown into his stage persona
Tim Minchin, Eventim Apollo review - fabulous triumph of rhyme and reason
Age has not withered the ginger Ninja comic, but there is an intruiging new tone
gaming
Rage 2 review – garish but great post-apocalyptic shooter
Challenge The Authority in this 'Mad Max on mushrooms' renegade romp
Win a Luxury Weekend for Two to Celebrate Brighton Festival!
An eclectic line-up spanning music, theatre, dance, visual art, film, comedy, literature and spoken word could be yours with boutique hotel and exquisite meals included
World War Z review - bloodthirsty fun with the zombie apocalypse
Chainsawing the brain-eaters as you battle against the tide of the undead
visual arts
Charlotte Salomon: Life? or Theatre?, Jewish Museum London review - rallying against death
Set aside time to absorb the stunning work of this modernist painter murdered at Auschwitz
Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh, Saatchi Gallery review - worth its weight?
Blockbuster artefacts in show that cares more about visitor numbers than visitor experience
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