theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Gary Naylor
Friday, 01 December 2023
Next door to the beautiful Art Deco Littlewoods Pools Building, nearly 30 years standing derelict, a set of grey sheds stand, a seat of potential for Liverpool’s nascent film...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 01 December 2023
Mischief Theatre set themselves a big challenge when they evolved their brand of knowing slapstick. And not just about how to destroy the scenery without maiming themselves.More...
Sarah Kent
Friday, 01 December 2023
It takes a brave or a foolhardy person to walk the streets wearing almost nothing but barbed wire and platform shoes, especially when the occasion is an anti-war demo in Moscow...
Guy Oddy
Friday, 01 December 2023
Ghost Woman’s 2022 self-titled album and this January’s swift follow-up Anne, If were both fairly laidback and spaced out affairs, with echoes of Beak’s free form motorik grooves...
Demetrios Matheou
Thursday, 30 November 2023
Rebecca Frecknall opened 2023 with a youthful, visceral, and brutal Streetcar Named Desire at The Almeida; she ends it with another startlingly vigorous adaptation,...
Thomas H Green
Thursday, 30 November 2023
A deathless trend in pop is taking great songs, slowing them down, doing orchestral versions, or rendering them raw acoustic. This, ostensibly, reveals their genius and/or brings...
David Nice
Wednesday, 29 November 2023
This is the show that launched a thousand puns, mostly ancient-Greek-oriented, and just as many corny rhymes, all delivered...
Bernard Hughes
Wednesday, 29 November 2023
Frank Bridge’s Phantasie Piano Quartet was astutely described by his student Benjamin Britten as “Brahms tempered with Fauré...
Graham Fuller
Wednesday, 29 November 2023
Some 28 years in gestation, Peter Gabriel’s eighth studio album of wholly original songs – his first since 2002’s Up – will...
Matt Wolf
Tuesday, 28 November 2023
Familiarity has bred something quite fantastic with the Old Vic Christmas Carol, which is back for a seventh season and...
Adam Sweeting
Tuesday, 28 November 2023
It was as long ago as January last year that the prolific Williams brothers, Jack and Harry, delivered their absorbing...
Robert Beale
Tuesday, 28 November 2023
John Storgårds found himself literally facing both ways for the third item on the BBC Philharmonic’s programme on Saturday:...
Mark Kidel
Tuesday, 28 November 2023
The vast and various spaces of Frank Gehry’s monumental Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris suit the needs of the thrilling...
Graham Fuller
Tuesday, 28 November 2023
British anti-war films inspired by “the war that” failed “to end all wars” include Oh! What a Lovely War, The Return of the...
Matt Wolf
Monday, 27 November 2023
The National Theatre these days seems to be going from hit-to-hit, with transfers aplenty and full houses at home. And there...
David Nice
Monday, 27 November 2023
Singular in its variousness, this is a three-act ballet that need some unpicking. No wonder those hooked on first...
Jonathan Geddes
Monday, 27 November 2023
There was a moment towards the end of this exuberant evening when Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson compared the show to a pantomime...
Christopher Lambton
Monday, 27 November 2023
It is not every day that a new choral work by a living composer can confidently be labelled a masterpiece. Yet this is what...
Gary Naylor
Monday, 27 November 2023
In Annus Mirabilis, Philip Larkin wrote,"So life was never better than In nineteen sixty-three (Though just too...
tv
Boat Story, BBC One review - once upon a time in Yorkshire
New Williams brothers thriller is violent, far-fetched and extremely watchable
The Crown, Season 6, Netflix review - royal epic in a vain search for authenticity
It looks like news photos coming to life, but the dialogue and concept still jar
Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story, Disney+ review - classic underdog tale of the little team that could
Inside story of Jenson Button's amazing championship year
film
Queendom review - an LGBTQ+ performance artist takes to the streets of Moscow in protest
Startlingly beautiful costumes designed to challenge the authorities
Blu-ray: King and Country
The class war rears its ugly head on the Western Front in Joseph Losey's bleak classic
The Eternal Daughter review - tricksy ghost story with a poignant emotional core
Tilda Swinton (and her dog) excel in Joanna Hogg's latest
new music
Album: Trevor Horn - Echoes: Ancient & Modern
Downtempo cover versions run the gamut from the bland to the excruciating
classical
Grosvenor, Park, Ridout, Soltani, Wigmore Hall review - chamber music supergroup in perfect accord
Thoughtful programming puts quirky novelty alongside big beasts
Dariescu, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - sounds of unquenchable optimism
Conductor is his own violin soloist in one of two UK premieres
MacMillan's Christmas Oratorio, Lois, Williams, RSNO, MacMillan, Usher Hall, Edinburgh – a great composer at the top of his game
Scottish premiere of a recent masterwork
opera
Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni, Royal College of Music review - a modest one-acter overloaded
Good young singers get more opportunities than the actual work offers
Jephtha, Royal Opera review - uncomfortable sacrifice oratorio not seismic enough
Sobriety and darkness eclipse Handel's dramatic vividness, despite strong performances
theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - four operas and a recital in one crazy day
Youth takes the comedy award in fringe delights alongside a well-done schlocky rarity
theatre
Macbeth, The Depot, Liverpool review - Ralph Fiennes leads a conventional production in an unconventional space
Touring show lands first in Liverpool with a terrifying relevance
Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Lyric Theatre review - adult panto delivered as jolly chaos
Mischief Theatre’s sight gags are faultlessly timed, though the verbals need a trim
The House of Bernarda Alba, Lyttleton Theatre review - dazzling darkness
Harriet Walter is a toweringly monstrous matriarch in Lorca’s tale of cruelty and repression
dance
The Dante Project, Royal Ballet review - brave but flawed take on the Divine Comedy returns
Hell and Purgatory get vivid if diffuse music from Thomas Adès, but Heaven is pallid
The Limit, Linbury Theatre review - a dance-theatre romcom that lacks both rom and com
An attempt to amplify a playscript with dance suggests the play should be left to speak for itself
Anemoi / The Cellist, Royal Ballet review - a feast of music in a neat double bill
Rachmaninov and Elgar take the laurels in a brace of prize-winning one-act ballets
comedy
Trevor Noah: Off the Record, O2 review - welcome return to standup for the polyglot motormouth
Back on tour, the former TV host has lost none of his charisma and charm
Michael McIntyre, Brighton Centre review - observational everyman
Jovial comic's first tour in five years
Books
Anne Michaels: Held review - one story across time
Fragments span the genration gap in this daring family saga of inheritance and trauma
Ishion Hutchinson: School of Instructions review - learning against estrangement
A vivid eulogy for the Jamaican soldiers of the British West Indies Regiment
Jesse Darling: Virgins review - going straight
A Turner Prize-nominee turns their hand to poetry with this visceral first collection
visual arts
Mark Rothko, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris review - a show well worth the trip across the Channel
Abstraction with emotion and soul in a landmark retrospective
Women in Revolt!, Tate Britain review - a super important if overwhelming show
Women protesting with all their might in both art and life
A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography, Tate Modern review - pulling out the stops to address issues around cultural identity
Thirty-six African artists reconnect with their heritage in dramatic and moving images
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