theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
David Nice
Tuesday, 31 January 2023
It’s dangerous to claim a sense of absolute rightness about a musical performance; that could mean no more than responding to an interpretation which happens to chime with your...
Helen Hawkins
Tuesday, 31 January 2023
Frantic Assembly’s Othello, originally co-developed with the Lyric in 2008, is back in its third iteration, and it’s still not exactly the play you studied at school or saw other...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 31 January 2023
Watching these harrowing films in rapid succession allows us to watch a great director’s confidence develop at close hand; though 1955’s A Generation (Pokolenie) is an impressive...
Gavin Dixon
Monday, 30 January 2023
This concert was advertised as the completion of an Elgar symphony cycle, though in the absence of the reconstructed Third, that meant the second of two. Both were planned with...
Aleks Sierz
Monday, 30 January 2023
Ever been to a queer club? You know, drag cabaret night at Madame Jojo’s, or the Black Cap or Her Upstairs. No? Well, not to worry – the Royal Court’s latest provides a fabulously...
Robert Beale
Monday, 30 January 2023
Ben Gernon’s calm and clear way of conducting an orchestra (something he once told me he’d observed in the work of his mentor, Colin Davis) is good to watch and, I would guess,...
Kieron Tyler
Monday, 30 January 2023
Reflections on how the past relates to now suffuse The Candle and the Flame. The album’s closing track is “When I Was a...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 29 January 2023
“Ka Huma” by Ivo Nilakreshna sounds as if a jazz band was taking on rock ’n’ roll. There’s a swing and sway, busy rhythm...
David Nice
Sunday, 29 January 2023
It’s coming up for two years since some of us watched the first three seasons of what’s increasingly coming to seem like...
Nick Hasted
Saturday, 28 January 2023
Spielberg sometimes directed The Fabelmans through a film of tears, as he recreated his cinema’s origins. Lightly...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 28 January 2023
Roger Norrington: The Complete Erato Recordings (Erato)Richard Osborne’s booklet essay contains some telling words...
Sebastian Scotney
Saturday, 28 January 2023
A Short Diary, a duo album for piano and drums, contains music of astonishing directness, calm and concentration. The story...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 27 January 2023
A film telling just the story of photographer Nan Goldin’s campaign against Purdue Pharmacy would have been worth the ticket...
David Nice
Friday, 27 January 2023
There’s life in the old overture-concerto-symphony format yet – especially if the conductor not only shapes every phrase but...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 27 January 2023
There’s a chance – a slim one – that you haven’t seen Noises Off, Michael Frayn’s farce about a farce that, as...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 27 January 2023
Seventy-eight years ago, on January 27,1945, Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army. The iconic images...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 27 January 2023
Imagine what would have happened if the young Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel were cabin-mates on a transatlantic liner. The...
David Nice
Thursday, 26 January 2023
The Castalian String Quartet is half what I remember, but only literally: while viola-player Charlotte Bonneton and cellist...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 26 January 2023
A sprawling French-made drama set in the early days of the First World War in 1914, Women at War tells the stories of a...
disc of the day
Blu-ray: The War Trilogy - Three Films by Andrzej Wajda
Three bleak but spectacular post-war classics, in gleaming new transfers
tv
Women at War, Netflix review - contrasting stories entwine during the chaos of World War One
Passion, intrigue and heartbreak behind the front lines
Stewart, Sky Documentaries review - touching and insightful portrait of Scottish race ace
Fascinating documentary explores the triumphs and tragedies of motor racing
film
Blu-ray: The War Trilogy - Three Films by Andrzej Wajda
Three bleak but spectacular post-war classics, in gleaming new transfers
The Fabelmans review - Spielberg remembers with wit and wonder
The director's early life examined with understated, almost unconscious need
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed review - superb documentary about a campaigning artist
Nan Goldin's fight against the makers of Oxycontin is as gutsy as her work
new music
Album: Robert Forster - The Candle and the Flame
At an uncertain time, the former Go-Between takes stock
Music Reissues Weekly: Padang Moonrise - The Birth of the Modern Indonesian Recording Industry
Eye-opening compilation where knowing the context is essential
Album: Sebastian Rochford, Kit Downes - A Short Diary
An album of grieving. And solace. And real class
classical
Leonskaja, Staatskapelle Streichquartett, Wigmore Hall / Secret Byrd, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - genuine versus theatrical
Brahms illuminated, Byrd rather more obliquely showcased
Ólafsson, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - spirit of delight
A curate's-egg turn from the Icelandic pianist in Schumann followed by magisterial Elgar
Gerhardt, BBC Philharmonic, Gernon, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - calm and clear conducting
Maybe not perfect, but when things worked, they worked beautifully
opera
First Person: soprano Soraya Mafi on why Glyndebourne's tour cancellation is disastrous
Though Arts Council England has partly reinstated English National Opera's grant, its cuts still have devastating consequences for the regions
Least Like the Other, Irish National Opera, Linbury Theatre review - the harrowing of Rosemary Kennedy
Composer Brian Irvine, director/designer Netia Jones and top performers mesmerise
A Child in Striped Pyjamas, The Cockpit review - a brave tackling of a Holocaust story
The celebrated novel is brought to the stage by a young composer with ambition
theatre
Othello, Lyric Hammersmith review - Frantic Assembly's high-energy take on the Moor
Shakespeare's tragedy as a tight thriller, with its racist elements fully exposed
Sound of the Underground, Royal Court review - loud and triumphantly proud
New play about the queer club scene is a fabulous extravaganza
Noises Off, Phoenix Theatre review - much revived classic farce gains in poignancy
Sure it's overly familiar, but, 40 years on, the laughs keep coming
dance
Julie Cunningham & Co, Sadler's Wells review - a fine piece of work, with added spice
The other Cunningham stakes out their territory in contemporary dance, and the non-binary debate
Swan Lake, English National Ballet, Coliseum review - the story of a deluded prince
The corps de ballet take the laurels in Derek Deane's dependably fine production
comedy
Alex Edelman, Menier Chocolate Factory review - London run for unmissable off-Broadway hit
How a Jewish standup found the funny side of a roomful of white nationalists
Books
'I let it emerge': an interview with Fiona Benson on the cusp of the TS Eliot Prize announcement
The poet discusses her new book, mayflies, motherhood, and memory
Jaan Kross: A Book of Falsehoods review - plague, power and deception in 16th century Tallinn
At last, the translation of volume three in the Estonian master's great historical trilogy
visual arts
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed review - superb documentary about a campaigning artist
Nan Goldin's fight against the makers of Oxycontin is as gutsy as her work
Spain and the Hispanic World, Royal Academy review - a monumental survey
The refurbishment of New York's Hispanic Society provides a unique opportunity to see its treasures
latest comments
Not all the audience! I thought it was tedious.
I agree with Colette’s comment above. It’s great...
Am I alone in finding Sgt Catherine Cawood a...
If Eva joins the cast as a regular it will test...
thanks for a nicely in depth review with some...
Sorry Paul, but the 1991 Hammersmith Experience...
To me it is one of the great ones, while L...
While.Overall enjoying the review/ insight to...