theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Theartsdesk
Wednesday, 01 October 2025
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...
James Saynor
Friday, 13 June 2025
Do the French do irony? Well, was Astérix a Gaul? Obviously they do, and do it pretty well to judge by many of their movies down the decades. As we brave the salutes on this side...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 13 June 2025
There’s an old theatre joke. “The electric chair is too good for a monster like that. They should send him out of town with a new musical”. The UK equivalent of touring...
Joe Muggs
Friday, 13 June 2025
When I was writing the introduction to my book, Bass, Mids, Tops: An Oral History of Soundsystem Culture, I came up with a phrase, which I ended up putting on promotional badges...
Sarah Kent
Thursday, 12 June 2025
It’s been a long time since an exhibition made me feel physically sick. The Hayward Gallery is currently hosting a retrospective of the Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara and the...
Rachel Halliburton
Thursday, 12 June 2025
For the first encore of the evening, it was not just the audience but the whole ensemble of Hespèrion XXI that was mesmerised as its leader, Jordi Savall, executed a...
Guy Oddy
Thursday, 12 June 2025
When Neil Young releases a new album, you can be reasonably sure that you’ll get either a disc of melancholy singer-...
Jon Turney
Wednesday, 11 June 2025
The slightly overwrought subtitle, "How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World and Shapes Our Future", ...
Kieron Tyler
Wednesday, 11 June 2025
Although Mary Halvorson leads the sextet Amaryllis on About Ghosts, instrumentally, she does not place her guitar to the...
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bridge Theatre review - Nick Hytner's hit gender-bender returns refreshed
Helen Hawkins
Tuesday, 10 June 2025
It’s a sign of the inroads that the term “immersive” has made in theatreland that it now gets jokily namedropped at the...
Rachel Halliburton
Tuesday, 10 June 2025
This thrilling production of Saul takes Handel’s dramatisation of the Bible’s first Book of Samuel and paints it in pictures...
David Nice
Tuesday, 10 June 2025
If, like me, chamber music isn’t your most frequent home, there are bound to be revelations of what for many are known...
Thomas H Green
Tuesday, 10 June 2025
Marina Diamandis is a proper pop star, brilliantly full-on, off on her own thing. The Welsh singer is primarily known for...
Adam Sweeting
Monday, 09 June 2025
The first series of The Gold in 2023 was received rapturously, though apparently it only told one half of the story of the...
Tim Cumming
Monday, 09 June 2025
Eva Quartet are four outstanding Bulgarian voices of polyphonic purity and depth, drawn from the legendary choir Le Mystere...
Liz Thomson
Monday, 09 June 2025
In those seemingly long-ago times of loneliness and lockdown, artists around the world invited us into their kitchens and...
Aleks Sierz
Sunday, 08 June 2025
The Bush Theatre is becoming a garden centre. Earlier this year, the venue staged Coral Wylie’s Lavender, Hyacinth,...
Boyd Tonkin
Sunday, 08 June 2025
Marianne Moore once famously defined poems as “imaginary gardens with real toads in them”. Operas also fill, or anyway...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 08 June 2025
“Forest and the Shore” by Keith Christmas is remarkable. In his essay for Gather In The Mushrooms, compiler, author and...
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?
disc of the day
Album: Sam Binga - Sam Binga Presents Club Orthodontics
A thrilling whirlwind tour of bass culture across decades and continents
The future of Arts Journalism
You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!
We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £49,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d
And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.
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
The Gold, Series 2, BBC One review - back on the trail of the Brink's-Mat bandits
Following the money to the Isle of Man, Spain and the Caribbean
Dept. Q, Netflix review - Danish crime thriller finds a new home in Edinburgh
Matthew Goode stars as antisocial detective Carl Morck
The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone, BBC Two - boom and bust in the lingerie trade
Life in the fast lane with David Cameron's entrepreneurship tsar
film
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life review - persuading us that the French can do you-know-who
An amiable cross-Channel literary rom com
Big Star: The Nick Skelton Story review - the ways of a man with his mount
Documentary about the champion showjumping duo
new music
Album: Sam Binga - Sam Binga Presents Club Orthodontics
A thrilling whirlwind tour of bass culture across decades and continents
Album: Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts - Talkin' to the Trees
Musical titan reflects on his life as he careers towards his 80th birthday
Album: Mary Halvorson - About Ghosts
Lauded US jazz guitarist strikes a balance between the composed and the improvised
classical
Hespèrion XXI, Savall, QEH review - an evening filled with laughter and light
An exhilarating exploration of innovation in 16th and 17th century repertoire
theartsdesk at the Dublin International Chamber Music Festival - musical revelations, nature beyond
Artistic director Ciara Higgins’ programming ensures plenty of surprises
Müller-Schott, RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, Edinburgh - spectacular Shostakovich to end the season
Brilliant orchestral results, while the cellist walks a tightrope in the Second Cello Concerto
opera
Saul, Glyndebourne review - playful, visually ravishing descent into darkness
Ten years after it first opened Barrie Kosky's production still packs a hefty punch
Così fan tutte, Nevill Holt Festival/Opera North review - re-writing the script
Real feeling turns the tables on stage artifice in Mozart that charms, and moves
theatre
The King of Pangea, King's Head Theatre review - grief and hope, but no connection
Heart and soul proves insufficient in world premiere of therapeutic show
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bridge Theatre review - Nick Hytner's hit gender-bender returns refreshed
This Dream is a great night out, especially for Shakespeare first-timers
Miss Myrtle’s Garden, Bush Theatre review - flowering talent, but needs weeding
New play about loss, love, grief and gardening is humane, but flawed
dance
Ballet to Broadway: Wheeldon Works, Royal Ballet review - the impressive range and reach of Christopher Wheeldon's craft
The title says it: as dancemaker, as creative magnet, the man clearly works his socks off
The Forsythe Programme, English National Ballet review - brains, beauty and bravura
Once again the veteran choreographer and maverick William Forsythe raises ENB's game
comedy
Dara Ó Briain, Soho Theatre Walthamstow review - master storyteller spins a family yarn
Search for his birth father takes a few turns
Mr Swallow: Show Pony, Richmond Theatre review - magic tricks and mayhem
Nick Mohammed gives his creation's origin story
Books
Samuel Arbesman: The Magic of Code review - the spark ages
A wide-eyed take on our digital world can’t quite dispel the dangers
Zsuzsanna Gahse: Mountainish review - seeking refuge
Notes on danger and dialogue in the shadow of the Swiss Alps
visual arts
Hamad Butt: Apprehensions, Whitechapel Gallery review - cool, calm and potentially lethal
The YBA who didn’t have time to become a household name
latest comments
You mean James Ford. Not James Frost. x
Thanks for that, Liam. There's a small amount to...
An excellent review.Just to let you know that the...
I was lucky to catch this exhibition at the Irish...
Italodisco is not "Italian disco" and, as a huge...
I am an American and I'm fascinated by the...
I mean if we had more precision it might be a 6.5...
You've presumably not been given Part Two to...