theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Liz Thomson
Sunday, 04 June 2023
There are few contemporary journalists whose names are instantly familiar – and usually it’s for the wrong reasons. Polly Toynbee occupies a special place in the hearts and minds...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 04 June 2023
“It takes a real effort to sound this small, this timid; to resist the effort to rock out and kick pedal. Singer ‘Amelia’ (oh yeah, I bet that’s her name) has spent her entire...
Graham Fuller
Saturday, 03 June 2023
The actress Sydney Sweeney’s face in the harrowing docudrama Reality is an ever-evolving map, its contours and pallor altering as it gradually dawns on her character, the real-...
Helen Hawkins
Saturday, 03 June 2023
The inspirations for the directing debut of Benjamin Millepied, choreographer and dancer in Black Swan, are cited as Merimée’s novella Carmen and Pushkin’s narrative poem The...
Graham Fuller
Saturday, 03 June 2023
Needy, truculent, and aggressive, an in-your-face stick of intensity and guilt-inducing melancholy, privileged young Amanda in Carolina Cavalli’s downbeat comedy is the girl no...
Harry Thorfinn-George
Saturday, 03 June 2023
At first, I misread the title of the lead single “Seaforth” from King Krule’s fourth album, Space Heavy, as “Sea Froth”. It felt like a fitting title, combining the watery...
Jane Edwardes
Friday, 02 June 2023
We all need a break from time to time, especially now given the grim state of the world. So it’s not surprising that comedy...
Jonathan Geddes
Friday, 02 June 2023
There are a few perils to saying supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, as Janette Manrara discovered on this opening night of...
Cheri Amour
Friday, 02 June 2023
Five years ago, breaking dry January a few days early, I joined a throng of folks amongst the merch boxes and strip lights...
Helen Hawkins
Thursday, 01 June 2023
Devoted fans may not learn anything that new about Noel Coward from Barnaby Thompson’s documentary Mad About the Boy, but...
Helen Hawkins
Thursday, 01 June 2023
Lip-syncing has become the hobby of many a young TikToker, but only an intrepid professional would contemplate using the...
Kathryn Reilly
Thursday, 01 June 2023
This is a slight album in terms of length (under half an hour) but not in emotional insight. It’s absolutely haunting. Here...
Alexandra Coghlan
Wednesday, 31 May 2023
“I am a poor student,” the Duke tells a smitten Gilda, in music that can barely keep a straight face, so plush is its melody...
David Nice
Wednesday, 31 May 2023
Conversation just before this concert started concerned Verdi’s Il trovatore and the truism that it needs “the four greatest...
Robert Beale
Wednesday, 31 May 2023
Innovation is always a risky business. Opera North’s vision and ambition for this production is to create, in effect, a new...
Lia Rockey
Wednesday, 31 May 2023
Sophia Giovannitti begins selling sex because it promises to make her the most amount of money in the shortest amount of...
Liz Thomson
Wednesday, 31 May 2023
"This album is almost like a recorded birthday party and birthday present to myself. I just invited all the singers that I...
Helen Hawkins
Tuesday, 30 May 2023
Hey-hey! Alright! The standard greeting of Kendall Roy will be much missed, along with all the other regular joys of...
Stephen Walsh
Tuesday, 30 May 2023
Götterdämmerung is not only the grandest of Wagner’s Ring operas, it is also the most varied. Siegfried’s journey down the...
disc of the day
Album: King Krule - Space Heavy
Archy Marshall’s fourth album as King Krule is a sombre, but surprisingly warm, meditation on love, loss and space
tv
Succession Season Four finale, Sky Atlantic review - a glorious bonfire of the vanities
The Roy family saga comes to a satisfyingly bruising end
Steeltown Murders, BBC One review - eloquent true-crime drama about tracking a serial killer 30 years on
How South Wales Police used DNA testing for the first time
Hannah Gadsby, Netflix special review - shaggy dog story of marital bliss
Tasmanian talks about marriage, cultural differences and autism
film
Reality review - Sydney Sweeney excels as a whistleblower
Chilling docudrama re-creates Reality Winner's interrogation by FBI agents at her suburban home
Carmen review - curio from choreographer turned director Benjamin Millepied
A mismatched showcase for Paul Mescal's powerful talent
Amanda review - too-intense Gen Z-er seeks a friend, boyfriend, anything
Deft Italian comedy about a rich twentysomething's existential crisis
new music
Music Reissues Weekly: Heavenly - Le Jardin de Heavenly
UK indie band’s 1992 album outshines the period’s vitriolic detractors
Album: King Krule - Space Heavy
Archy Marshall’s fourth album as King Krule is a sombre, but surprisingly warm, meditation on love, loss and space
Disney 100 - The Concert, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - a slick tour of the Magic Kingdom
This was a breezy and entertaining trip to the house of Mouse
classical
Jerusalem Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - singing to make the heart leap
Peerless interpretations of quartets by Mozart, Prokofiev and Brahms
Requiem, Opera North review - partnership and diversity
Choral-orchestral performance meets contemporary dance in cross-cultural fusion
Benedetti, Kanneh-Mason, Grosvenor, RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - gorgeous textures, starry soloists
'All Star Gala' shines as much in the contributions of the regulars as in its guests
opera
Rigoletto, Opera Holland Park review - Verdi's Duke gets the Oxbridge treatment
A handsome season opener doesn't quite stab where it counts
Requiem, Opera North review - partnership and diversity
Choral-orchestral performance meets contemporary dance in cross-cultural fusion
Götterdämmerung, Longborough Festival review - from the hieratic to the mundane and back
Wagner's gallon in a pint pot with mixed results
theatre
Bleak Expectations, Criterion Theatre review - popular radio comedy takes to the stage
Entertaining mash-up of Dickensian tropes
Mad About the Boy review - entertaining cradle-to-grave Noel Coward documentary
The Master's life seen close up but with no warts
Re-Member Me, Hampstead Theatre review - wittily staged but poignant lip-syncing
Dickie Beau creates a tribute to past Hamlets, one in particular
dance
Requiem, Opera North review - partnership and diversity
Choral-orchestral performance meets contemporary dance in cross-cultural fusion
Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT1), Sadler's Wells review - an extinction rebellion in dance
A rare visit from Europe's No.1 contemporary troupe makes a powerful eco-protest
Hunting legendary treasure with ballet's Indiana Jones - Pierre Lacotte 1932-2023
The prolific recreator of early ballets has died, leaving a lively argument
comedy
John Kearns, Brighton Komedia review - Van Gogh, joining the circus and pooey nappies
Reflections on fatherhood and creating art
Dear Billy, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh review - powerful tribute to Scottish pride
Celebration of Scotland's iconic comedy legend Billy Connolly is a moving portrait of a nation
Books
Polly Toynbee: An Uneasy Inheritance - My Family and Other Radicals review - looking back
The burden of a social conscience
Sophia Giovannitti: Working Girl - On Selling Art and Selling Sex review - portrait of the artist as sex worker
A thoughtful debut treatise that finds intimacies in surprising places
Kieran Yates: All the Houses I've Ever Lived In, Brighton Festival 2023 review - home as comfort, and cruelty
A book talk becomes an enraged, engaged meeting about property and social division
visual arts
Moon Is the Oldest TV review - a fitting tribute to a visionary modern artist
Authoritative documentary that defines the genius of Nam June Paik
Sarah Sze: Metronome, Artangel at Peckham Rye station review - an installation of visual complexity and physical simplicity
The detritus that accumulates in our over-stimulated brains
Isaac Julien: What Freedom is to Me, Tate Britain review - a journey from making documentaries to making art
A film-maker goes from speaking to the street to addressing the museum
latest comments
I saw the Glasgow concert the following day and...
I largely agree with the writer about Bradley...
A beautiful evening that will stay with me for a...
An amazing evening that sadly many people left...
In fact, so moved was Gretchen P that she came...
The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir performed...
Certainly the Tormis pieces were the standouts in...
What a beautiful, poetic review that perfectly...