wed 12/02/2025

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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...
David Nice
Wednesday, 12 February 2025
So the Royal Opera had assembled a dream cast, conductor (Edward Gardner) and director (Richard Jones). The only question until last night was whether composer Mark-Anthony...
Kieron Tyler
Wednesday, 12 February 2025
The exhortations don’t seem necessary as the audience is already letting off the steam which has built up in anticipation of a full-bore show. Nonetheless, The Courettes’ Flávia...
Nick Hasted
Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof is now an Oscar-nominated refugee, in a bittersweet harvest for his film The Seed of the Sacred Fig.The 52-year-old has previously probed the...
Thomas H Green
Wednesday, 12 February 2025
Manic Street Preachers’ earnest and literate pretentiousness is both their Achilles Heel and their superpower. Their greatest songs are amped by full investment in whatever...
David Nice
Tuesday, 11 February 2025
For all its passing British sea shanties and folksongs, Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony does Walt Whitman’s determinedly global-oriented poetry full justice. That “pennant...
Ellie Roberts
Tuesday, 11 February 2025
Bowling For Soup are celebrating their iconic album, A Hangover You Don’t Deserve, on a fun-filled, energetic tour for its...
Jon Turney
Tuesday, 11 February 2025
Working on materials was basic to human culture from the start: chipping at flint to make a hand-axe; fashioning bone or...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 11 February 2025
Akira Kurosawa’s mastery of different genres is a given and one of High and Low’s strengths is a seamless blending of...
Demetrios Matheou
Monday, 10 February 2025
Annie Ernaux’s semi-autobiographical book Les Années charts a woman’s life across time and space, history and...
Thomas H Green
Monday, 10 February 2025
“I really am the repository for all your shit,” Nina Conti’s famous Monkey hand puppet tells her. Monkey may have a point....
Rachel Halliburton
Monday, 10 February 2025
It was the sonically adventurous, shiveringly atmospheric cello piece by Latvian composer Preteris Vasks that proved to be...
Jenny Gilbert
Monday, 10 February 2025
Greek myths are all over theatre stages at the moment, their fierce, vengeful stories offering unnerving parallels with...
Jonathan Geddes
Monday, 10 February 2025
Cyndi Lauper was preceded onstage by a brief video that zipped through her career, which she drily declared was just in case...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 09 February 2025
On its own, the second session The Lurkers recorded for the BBC’s John Peel show on 18 April 1978 is arguably a curio, a...
Robert Beale
Saturday, 08 February 2025
When a piece of music is heard for the first time ever, there’s always the delicious hope that, just by being there, an...
Stephen Walsh
Saturday, 08 February 2025
Drained as they are at present of crucial funds, WNO are managing to put on only two operas this spring, and spaced out to...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 08 February 2025
 Michael Tilson Thomas: The Complete Columbia, Sony and RCA Recordings (Sony)Big box sets continue to arrive. This one’...
India Lewis
Saturday, 08 February 2025
Taking on some of the contingent, nebulous quality of its subject, Jacqueline Feldman’s Precarious Lease examines the...

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★★★ CYNDI LAUPER, GLASGOW Still having chaotic fun after all these years

★★★★ BRAIMAH KANNEH-MASON, FERNANDES, GENT, 229 A beguiling trip around the world

★★★★★ THE YEARS, HAROLD PINTER THEATRE A bravura, joyous feat of storytelling

CLASSICAL CDS Two great conductors celebrated, medieval choral music and an eclectic vocal recital

★★★★★ THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, WNO No concessions and no holds barred

★★★★ PHAEDRA + MINOTAUR, LINBURY THEATRE A double dose of Greek myth

★★★★★ NINA CONTI, BRIGHTON DOME A melee of jubilant spontaneity

★★★★★ BLU-RAY: HIGH AND LOW Kurosawa’s multi-layered Japanese noir, brilliantly plotted

disc of the day

Album: Manic Street Preachers - Critical Thinking

Lots of words but not so many catchy songs

The future of Arts Journalism

 

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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

Paradise, Disney+ review - enigmatic drama with an unknown destination

Dan Fogelman's new series has an excellent cast but a recycled premise

Brian and Maggie, Channel 4 review - Thatcherism's date with TV destiny

James Graham's dramatisation of Brian Walden's fateful 1989 interview

film

theartsdesk Q&A: Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof on 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig' - 'It became a question of self-respect'

The exiled filmmaker on authoritarian minds, reluctant radicalism and Iran's future

Blu-ray: High and Low

Akira Kurosawa’s multi-layered Japanese noir, brilliantly plotted

Bring Them Down review - ramming it home in the west of Ireland

Directorial debut features strong performances and too much violence

new music

Northern Winter Beat 2025, Aalborg review - The Courettes, Dungen and Lubomyr Melnyk confront ideas of how to play

Danish city hosts the festival imbued with a cool which doesn’t need expressing

Album: Manic Street Preachers - Critical Thinking

Lots of words but not so many catchy songs

Bowling For Soup, Civic Hall, Wolverhampton review - nostalgic, celebratory fun

Texan pop-punk legends filled the sold-out Civic Hall with pure joy

classical

Gilliver, Liverman, Rangwanasha, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - a rainbow of British music

Poetic Maconchy and Walton, surging Vaughan Williams bursting its confines

Braimah Kanneh-Mason, Fernandes, Gent, 229 review - a beguiling trip around the world

Engagingly humble and empathetic work from three talented musicians

Manchester Collective, RNCM review - something special in new music

Performers of extraordinary versatility fulfil their brief

opera

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Festen, Royal Opera review - firing on every front

No slack in Mark-Anthony Turnage's operatic treatment of the visceral first Dogme film

Phaedra + Minotaur, Royal Ballet and Opera, Linbury Theatre review - a double dose of Greek myth

Opera and dance companies share a theme in this terse but affecting double bill

theatre

The Years, Harold Pinter Theatre review - a bravura, joyous feat of storytelling
The Almeida’s all-women hit transfers to the West End
Elektra, Duke of York's Theatre review - Brie Larson's London stage debut is angry but inert
Brie Larson makes a brave West End debut that, alas, misfires
First Person: writer Lauren Mooney on bringing bodies together in the new Royal Court play, 'More Life'
Kandinsky Theatre co-creator on a new play tethering technology to existence

dance

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Phaedra + Minotaur, Royal Ballet and Opera, Linbury Theatre review - a double dose of Greek myth

Opera and dance companies share a theme in this terse but affecting double bill

Onegin, Royal Ballet review - a poignant lesson about the perils of youth

John Cranko was the greatest choreographer British ballet never had. His masterpiece is now 60 years old

comedy

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Nina Conti: Whose Face Is It Anyway?, Brighton Dome review - a melee of jubilant spontaneity

The ventriloquist-comedian's improvised hour-long outing is skilful and fabulously entertaining

Books

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Philip Marsden: Under a Metal Sky review - rock and awe

Myths, mines, and mankind combine in this wide-eyed reading of the earth beneath our feet

Jacqueline Feldman: Precarious Lease review - living on the edge

The trials and triumphs of a city’s margins are observed by an outside eye

visual arts

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Best of 2024: Visual Arts

A great year for women artists

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