tue 15/10/2024

theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews

Thomas H Green
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
VINYL OF THE MONTHHannah Scott Absence of Doubt (Fancourt Music)Sometimes a singer comes along who’s not stylistically my thing at all, but their voice has a quality that wrenches...
Helen Hawkins
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
It seems to be silly season for big-name directors. First, Coppola’s Megalopolis and Steve McQueen’s Blitz: why? Now Alfonso Cuarón’s Disclaimer: double why?What happens in the...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
František Vláčil’s Marketa Lazarová (1966) has been voted the best Czech film ever made, a visionary 13th century epic whose expense prompted its director to shoot the shorter,...
Robert Beale
Monday, 14 October 2024
Martin Duncan’s 2008 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream remains one of the best and funniest things Opera North has ever done – back now again (it was also seen in 2013-14),...
Veronica Lee
Monday, 14 October 2024
Rose Matafeo knows how to make an entrance, as she enters the stage with a choreographed dance. She's useless at ending things, she says – shows, relationships – so she's going to...
Boyd Tonkin
Monday, 14 October 2024
“Sero sed serio”: so runs the Salisbury family motto on the carved coat-of-arms in the lavishly panelled and painted Marble Hall of Hatfield House. “Late, but in earnest”. The...
Guy Oddy
Monday, 14 October 2024
MC5 were the original proto-punkers who led the charge against wafty hippy music in the late Sixties and early Seventies....
Aleks Sierz
Sunday, 13 October 2024
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun is not only the first play by a black woman to premiere on Broadway, back in 1959,...
Nick Hasted
Sunday, 13 October 2024
A boy’s dead friend scratching at his first-floor window, Nosferatu-like vampire Barlow rearing up with heart attack shock…...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 13 October 2024
In 2022, Spritualized’s Jason Pierce described his musical goal as "trying to find somewhere between Arvo Pärt and The...
David Nice
Saturday, 12 October 2024
At first, you wonder if the peculiar voice of Henry James’s maybe unreliable narrator can be preserved in this production....
Adam Sweeting
Saturday, 12 October 2024
ConclaveDirector Edward Berger won an Oscar for his last feature, All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), but here he...
Sarah Kent
Saturday, 12 October 2024
“The ocean is our home… Even in my next life I will dive again,” says Geum Ok, one of a band of female divers from Jeju, a...
David Nice
Saturday, 12 October 2024
Most of us have been there: an impasse in a marriage, a bereavement in a dysfunctional family. Leonard Bernstein certainly...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 12 October 2024
 Georges Prêtre plays Francis Poulenc (Erato)Georges Prêtre and Francis Poulenc’s working relationship began in 1959...
Tim Cumming
Saturday, 12 October 2024
Sweet Release opens up a landscape of redemption by riding the rails of a classic blues, the title track talking...
Lindsey Ferrentino
Friday, 11 October 2024
I turn 36 this year, while living in London and rehearsing my new play The Fear of 13 at the Donmar Warehouse. The cast...
Hugh Barnes
Friday, 11 October 2024
Unlike the controversial Netflix show Baby Reindeer, which challenges many of the same attitudes towards sexual harassment,...
Robert Beale
Friday, 11 October 2024
Of all the inventive and enterprising things Manchester Collective do, it’s most often been the playing of a string ensemble...

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?

 

★★★★★ THE TURN OF THE SCREW, ENO Jamesian ambiguities chillingly preserved

★★★★ JUSTIN ADAMS & MAURO DURANTE - SWEET RELEASE Pizzica, rock, blues & Fairuz

★★★ THE HARDACRES, CHANNEL 5 Will everyday saga of Yorkshire folk strike a popular note?

'MAKING A PLAY IS SO WEIRD': LINDSEY FERRENTINO on the play that has led Adrien Brody to the London stage

★★★★ A RAISIN IN THE SUN, LYRIC HAMMERSMITH A historical gem and a play for today

★ KANGA, MANCHESTER COLLECTIVE, SINGH String ensemble at its most rewarding

FILM DIRECTOR ALICE LOWE On 'Timestalker' and what women rue through the ages

★★★★ TROUBLE IN TAHITI/A QUIET PLACE, ROYAL OPERA Top cast plays unhappy families

disc of the day

Blu-ray: The Valley of the Bees

František Vláčil’s taut, intense medieval thriller is a classic of Czech cinema

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

Disclaimer, Apple TV+ review - a misfiring revenge saga from Alfonso Cuarón

Odd casting and weak scripting aren't a temptation to keep watching

Ludwig, BBC One review - entertaining spin on the brainy detective formula

David Mitchell is a perfect fit for this super-sleuth

The Hardacres, Channel 5 review - a fishy tale of upward mobility

Will everyday saga of Yorkshire folk strike a popular note?

film

Blu-ray: The Valley of the Bees

František Vláčil’s taut, intense medieval thriller is a classic of Czech cinema

Salem’s Lot review - listless King remake

King's small-town vampires suffer vicious edits amidst tantalising folk magic

The Last of the Sea Women review - a moving tale of feisty traditional divers

Eye-opening Korean doc about intrepid harvesters of the deep

new music

Album: MC5 - Heavy Lifting

Partial final reformation by proto-punk greats is a mixed bag

classical

Classical CDs: Elephants, clocks and palindromes

A lovable French composer boxed up, plus discs of choral and chamber music

opera

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Opera North review - one of the best and funniest

Perspex and bubblewrap for a Sixties take on Britten's Shakespeare

The Turn of the Screw, English National Opera review - Jamesian ambiguities chillingly preserved

Pity and terror in Ailish Tynan’s anguished Governess and Isabella Bywater’s production

Trouble in Tahiti/A Quiet Place, Linbury Theatre review - top cast plays unhappy families

Mini-masterpiece and splashy sequel carried off with as much conviction as they can take

theatre

A Raisin in the Sun, Lyric Hammersmith review - of race and men
Lorraine Hansberry classic is both a historical gem and a play for today
First Person: Lindsey Ferrentino on the play that has led Adrien Brody to the London stage
The American dramatist on bringing 'The Fear of 13', and its Oscar-winning lead, to the Donmar
The Lehman Trilogy, Gillian Lynne Theatre review - three brothers, two crashes, one American Dream
Sensational stagecraft elevates familiar tale of immigrant success in the USA

dance

National Ballet of Canada, Sadler's Wells review - see this, and know what dance can do

Yet again, Crystal Pite proves herself a ferocious creative force, alongside fellow Canadian exports James Kudelka and Emma Portner

Nobodaddy, Teaċ Daṁsa, Dublin Theatre Festival review - supernatural song and dance odyssey

Michael Keegan-Dolan’s genius guides us through death, separation and loss

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Royal Ballet review - big, bold and ultimately brash

It may be box-office gold, but Christopher Wheeldon's adaptation fails to find a beating heart down the rabbit hole

Books

Stevie Smith: Not Waving But Drowning review - riding the wave

This slim and stylish new edition can't quite dispel some lurking doubts

Ellen McWilliams: Resting Places - On Wounds, War and the Irish Revolution review - finding art in the inarticulable

A violent history finds a home in this impressionistic blend of literary criticism and memoir

Claire Messud: This Strange Eventful History review - home is where the heart was

A brutally honest and epic narrative follows a family doomed to wander the earth

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters