theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Aleks Sierz
Monday, 25 March 2019
Contemporary British theatre loves time travel — and not just to the past. It also enjoys imagining the future, especially the bad stuff ahead. So Ella Road's debut play, The...
Gavin Dixon
Monday, 25 March 2019
No successor has yet been named to Vladimir Jurowski as Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic, so it is interesting to note that Edward Gardner is making several...
Asya Draganova
Monday, 25 March 2019
The stereotypical image of heavy metal music suggests it exists in isolation from other musical styles. And while it is true that metal is distinct and re-invents its...
Tim Cornwell
Monday, 25 March 2019
I am deeply jealous of Miles Jupp's dressing gown in The Life I Lead, the solo play at the Park Theatre. It's a silky-grey patterned number of exquisitely comfortable proportions...
Adam Sweeting
Monday, 25 March 2019
ITV has an enviable knack for creating populist historical costume dramas which never seem to wear out, despite a million rotations on ITV3. Once everybody had got over the...
Guy Oddy
Monday, 25 March 2019
Balsall Heath’s Castle & Falcon is one of the newer live music venues in Birmingham, a city that finally seems to be undergoing something of a renaissance in these otherwise...
Liz Thomson
Monday, 25 March 2019
Guy Clark is among the favourite songwriters of Bob Dylan, a Grammy-winning giant of the so-called outlaw country music...
Boyd Tonkin
Sunday, 24 March 2019
Around the works canteen, a dozen huge wall-paintings depict, in bright cheerful colours spread across radically stylised...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 24 March 2019
Until now, Rema-Rema’s only release was a 12-inch EP released in August 1980. It had hit shops after the band fell apart at...
Guy Oddy
Sunday, 24 March 2019
As Nick Cave has edged ever further towards mainstream acceptance with each of his recent Bad Seeds’ albums, so he has...
Matt Wolf
Saturday, 23 March 2019
London's impromptu mini-season devoted to the work of Athol Fugard picks up real steam with Blood Knot, Matthew Xia's...
Bernard Hughes
Saturday, 23 March 2019
London performances of Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Choir are like Meaningful Votes: you wait a long time for one, then...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 23 March 2019
Martinů: The Complete Music for Violin and Orchestra Bohuslav Matoušek (violin), Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/...
Thomas H Green
Saturday, 23 March 2019
Edwyn Collins is in a good mood. Perhaps it’s his 2014 move back to his native Scotland where he now lives and records on...
David Nice
Friday, 22 March 2019
When "Maestro" Riccardo Muti left the Royal Opera's previous production of Verdi's fate-laden epic, disgusted by minor...
Markie Robson-Scott
Friday, 22 March 2019
NYC, 1987. AIDS is ravaging the city, Reagan’s in power, Trump is in his tower. The American dream is available - to some....
Owen Richards
Friday, 22 March 2019
Where would you go for a devastating study on the human condition? The home movies of teenage skaters would be very low down...
Aleks Sierz
Friday, 22 March 2019
Emilia Bassano Lanier is not a household name. But maybe she should be. Born in 1569, she was one of the first women in...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 22 March 2019
For admirers of Henri-Georges Clouzot or Brigitte Bardot, this Criterion restoration of their rarely seen 1960 collaboration...
disc of the day
CD: Steve Earle & The Dukes - Guy
Steve Earle and friends head to Nashville for a tribute to the late Guy Clark
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tv
Victoria, Series 3, ITV review - can Her Maj cope with the Age of Revolution?
Jenna Coleman rises to the occasion as violent change rocks the monarchy
Pose, BBC Two review - transgender goes mainstream
And the category is: master of gloss Ryan Murphy brings on the world of 1980s drag balls
The Bay, ITV, review - Broadchurch goes north
Morven Christie plays a detective with a naughty secret in a Morecambe murder case
film
Minding the Gap review – profound musings on life
Don’t be deceived, this skateboarding documentary is a heartbreaking classic
DVD/Blu-Ray: La Vérité
Henri-Georges Clouzot's powerful 1960 courtroom drama attacks French bourgeois morality
new music
World Metal Congress, Rich Mix, London review - celebration and critique of a global phenomenon
International metalheads and academics get together in Shoreditch to flash the devil’s horns
My Baby, Castle & Falcon, Birmingham review – the Dutch/Kiwi band start up the festival vibe early for 2019
Spring has sprung with a riotous night of funk, rock and rave
CD: Steve Earle & The Dukes - Guy
Steve Earle and friends head to Nashville for a tribute to the late Guy Clark
classical
Soltani, LPO, Gardner, RFH review – disciplined and dynamic accounts
Elegant Elgar, keenly focussed but sometimes lacking nuance
Vasari Singers, Backhouse, St Bride’s Fleet Street review - rarely heard choral classic soars
Schnittke’s challenging Concerto for Choir given a committed reading
Classical CDs Weekly: Martinů, Prokofiev, Sullivan
20th century violin music, a Russian fairytale in a Scots makeover and an exhumed Victorian oratorio
opera
La forza del destino, Royal Opera review - generous voices, dramatic voids
Generalised star turns from Kaufmann and Netrebko defuse Pappano's musical drama
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Birmingham Opera Company review - searing music-theatre for all
Bloodied brides and rat-heads run amok in visceral ballroom Shostakovich
Idomeneo, English Touring Opera review – honest excellence
Strong singing and fuss-free direction do justice to Mozart's dark masterpiece
theatre
The Phlebotomist, Hampstead Theatre review - thought-provoking dystopian thriller
Resonant new play about genetics is well-written and excitingly staged
The Life I Lead, Park Theatre review - pleasant enough but lacks bite
Solo play looks back blandly at the celebrated screen dad in 'Mary Poppins'
Blood Knot, Orange Tree Theatre review - defining apartheid-era drama delivers afresh
Athol Fugard's seminal 1961 play hasn't lost its potency
dance
The Thread, Russell Maliphant & Vangelis, Sadler’s Wells review – an inspiring marriage of old and new
Divergent worlds made to co-exist with apparent ease
Bon Voyage, Bob, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's Wells review - interminable ennui
At three and a half wearisome hours, this feels like a marathon
The Rite of Spring/Gianni Schicchi, Opera North review - unlikely but musically satisfying pairing
Odd-couple double bill of Stravinsky and Puccini with plenty to delight ear and eye
comedy
Ed Gamble, The Stand review - amiable hour touching on personal issues
Opening show of 2019 Glasgow Comedy Festival
Sheeps, Soho Theatre review - sketch comedy with a touch of the surreal
Friendship, fake gurus and fun
gaming
The Lego Movie 2 Videogame review - everything is not awesome
Few fresh ideas means this movie adaptation treads the same old ground
Anthem review - singing praises? More like a cautious nod
A rocky start for a new franchise that offers potential and problems in equal measure
Crackdown 3 review - spectacular super-powered action that was great fun many years ago
Nearly a decade has passed since the last incarnation but little has changed in this stagnant shooter
visual arts
Mike Nelson, The Asset Strippers, Tate Britain review – exhilarating reminder of industrial might
A stirring elegy to Britain's industrial past
An encounter with John Richardson, Picasso's biographer who has died at 95
Picasso's definitive biographer recalls the artist he knew
latest comments
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