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Theartsdesk
Friday, 31 January 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...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 24 January 2025
As something of an immigrant to the capital myself in the long hot summer of 1984, I gobbled up Absolute Beginners, Colin MacInnes’s novel of an outsider embracing the temptations...
Robert Beale
Friday, 24 January 2025
There was excellent music making in the Hallé concert in Manchester last night, and there was self-admitted “noise”. Briefly, the two coincided in one work.The outstanding music...
Sebastian Scotney
Friday, 24 January 2025
Nine billion streams a year. That’s the sheer scale on which the music of Ludovico Einaudi reaches audiences. The Italian, who will be 70 this November, is courteous and genial in...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 23 January 2025
An opening sequence of a drone flying over a busy street in Baghdad, followed by a huge explosion that leaves many casualties and a gaping hole where a row of buildings used to be...
David Nice
Thursday, 23 January 2025
Serious realisation of the seven often thorny Martinů string quartets is a major undertaking. When I spoke to Veronika Jarůšková and Peter Jarůšek after an East Neuk Festival...
Thomas H Green
Thursday, 23 January 2025
The quandary is this. Middlesbrough singer Amelia Coburn made one of my favourite albums of last year, her debut, Between...
James Saynor
Thursday, 23 January 2025
There’s a moment, as we build to a climax in Brady Corbet’s first film, The Childhood of a Leader (2015), when a servant at...
Katie Colombus
Thursday, 23 January 2025
It would be really easy to get hung up on the definition for this album. Is it a new sexuality term? A holiday genre of...
Adam Sweeting
Wednesday, 22 January 2025
If nothing else, ITV’s new thriller Out There is a fabulous advertisement for the Welsh countryside. Many scenes were shot...
Justine Elias
Wednesday, 22 January 2025
Despite Rossini’s banger of an overture and a Looney Tunes cartoon starring Daffy Duck as William Tell, I’ll wager that few...
Joe Muggs
Wednesday, 22 January 2025
This is Tunng’s ninth album, their first in five years, and marks their 20th anniversary by consciously going full...
David Nice
Tuesday, 21 January 2025
When Vladimir Jurowski planned this typically unorthodox programme, he could not have known that a disaster even greater,...
Miranda Heggie
Tuesday, 21 January 2025
Once again, Glasgow’s annual winter festival of traditional music from all parts of the world is formed of an...
John Carvill
Tuesday, 21 January 2025
The blurb that accompanies this Criterion Blu-ray calls Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky, which co-stars John Cassavetes and...
Nick Hasted
Monday, 20 January 2025
David Lynch’s final two features mapped a haunted Hollywood of curdled innocence and back-alley eeriness. Mulholland Drive (...
Rachel Halliburton
Monday, 20 January 2025
It took a while for journalists to identify the chain-smoking, Machiavellian figure who was a permanent presence at early...
Aleks Sierz
Monday, 20 January 2025
Most Brits don’t know much about South Africa today, but we do know about house values, so this new comedy by South African...
Veronica Lee
Monday, 20 January 2025
Ben Elton loves a scrap. The Motormouth of yesteryear, who made his name attacking Margaret Thatcher and her policies (and...
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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.
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tv
Prime Target, Apple TV+ review - the appliance of science
Boffins and baddies collide in Steve Thompson's complicated thriller
Out There, ITV1 review - drugs and thugs disfigure the Welsh landscape
Martin Clunes stars in Ed Whitmore's smartly-written drama
What's the Matter with Tony Slattery?, BBC Two review - absorbing but troubling search for answers
RIP TONY SLATTERY How mental illness cut short a brilliant showbusiness career
film
The Brutalist review - we're building to something
An epic of American dreaming that baffles and mesmerises
William Tell review - stirring action adventure with silly dialogue
The Swiss folk hero gets an epic update
new music
Amelia Coburn, Komedia, Brighton review - short set from rising Teeside folk sensation hits the sweet spot
Jim Moray tour support slot offers an undiluted snapshot of a name to watch
Album: FKA Twigs - Eusexua
A transformative electronic journey across diverse sonic and emotional landscapes
classical
Gigashvili, Hallé, Cox, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - beauty and style from a winning pianist
Music and ‘noise’ come together as new music meets Mozart and Tchaikovsky
Giltburg, Pavel Haas Quartet, Wigmore Hall review - into the labyrinth of a Martinů masterpiece
Fierce Czech first half followed by more storm but also balm in Brahms
Tiffin Youth Choir, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, Jurowski, RFH review - perfect detachment suits public statements
Poised Haydn and John Adams in a surprising sequence
opera
Love Life, Opera North review - Lerner and Weill's blast into the past
Time-travelling tale of love and despair - the first 'concept musical' revived
Jenůfa, Royal Opera review - electrifying details undermined by dead space
Knife-edge conducting and singing, but non-realistic production is weaker in revival
theatre
The Lonely Londoners, Kiln Theatre review - Windrush Generation arrive in a London full of opportunities, but not for them
Memories, frustrations and hopes in a city emerging from post-war austerity
Kyoto, Soho Place Theatre - blistering, darkly witty play raises more questions than it answers
The script turns dry-as-dust diplomatic detail into nothing less than an adrenaline sport
A Good House, Royal Court review - provocative, but imperfect
South African satire about racism, sexism, home ownership and community politics
dance
Nutcracker, English National Ballet, Coliseum review - Tchaikovsky and his sweet tooth rule supreme
New production's music, sweets, and hordes of exuberant children make this a hot ticket
comedy
Chris McCausland, Winchester Theatre Royal review - Strictly winner as cheerfully cynical as ever
Back to the day job telling gags
Books
Best of 2024: Books
As 2024 comes to an end, we look back at the books that have thrilled and enthralled us
William J. Mann: Bogie & Bacall review - beyond the screen
Why we're still in love with Bogart and Bacall, and their legendary Hollywood romance
visual arts
Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet, Tate Modern review - an exhaustive and exhausting show
Flashing lights, beeps and buzzes are diverting, but quickly pall
latest comments
very superficial review.
It's 'Martyn Bennett' with two ts, though....
Thank you! And what a privilege to have been able...
Nowhere near as good as the original. Shallow....
Though now living in Toronto we witnessed...
Thank you!
Agreed. No real french dynamic, thin story...
It is on BBC Opera on 3 on February 8 https...