theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Hugh Barnes
Friday, 11 October 2024
Unlike the controversial Netflix show Baby Reindeer, which challenges many of the same attitudes towards sexual harassment, self-delusion, and stalking’s gender bias, Alice Lowe’s...
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 led from first desk by Rakhi Singh that’s been the...
Justine Elias
Friday, 11 October 2024
Before Alice Lowe wrote her first short film scripts, she was, despite success in television and theater, “terrified” of making a full-length feature. “I thought it was some...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 11 October 2024
Merchant bankers then eh? It’s not a slang term of abuse for nothing, as the middlemen collecting the crumbs off the cake (in Sherman McCoy’’s analogy from The Bonfire of the...
Ismene Brown
Friday, 11 October 2024
Of all the ingenues in all the world of golden TV sitcom, Felicity Kendal was the most innocent, the most wicked, the most deceptive, with an amaretto voice that wheedled like a...
Sebastian Scotney
Friday, 11 October 2024
Immanuel Wilkins’s third Blue Note Album – Blues Blood – has a big concept behind it. According to the album blurb, we are offered “a multimedia performance about...
Aleks Sierz
Thursday, 10 October 2024
Air travel is bad for us. Yes, yes, I know we need planes to take us long distances, but look at the downside: not only the...
Tim Etchells
Thursday, 10 October 2024
Forced Entertainment is a theatre company based in Sheffield, touring original performances around the world. The core group...
Sarah Kent
Thursday, 10 October 2024
Brazilian artist Lygia Clark is best known for taking her abstract sculptures off the pedestal and inviting people to...
Helen Hawkins
Thursday, 10 October 2024
The writer-director Josh Azouz and actor-director Kathryn Hunter have collaborated on a piece exploring the ethics of being...
Markie Robson-Scott
Thursday, 10 October 2024
“I like laws and rules,” Steph (Jeany Spark), a jaded primary school teacher, tells a pet-shop employee – she’s adopting a...
Ellie Roberts
Thursday, 10 October 2024
With Warped Tour anniversary rumours in the air, Green Day and blink-182 touring the world, and 20 huge new tracks from Sum...
Demetrios Matheou
Wednesday, 09 October 2024
Contemporary reworkings of Greek tragedy run a very particular risk, that out of context the heightened actions of the...
Helen Hawkins
Wednesday, 09 October 2024
As hurricanes rip into the American Gulf states with increasing ferocity, Eastern Europe disappears underwater and even the...
Sarah Kent
Wednesday, 09 October 2024
Like an angry teenager rejecting everything his parents stand for, American artist Mike Kelley embraced everything most...
French Toast, Riverside Studios review - Racine-inspired satire finds its laughs once up-and-running
Gary Naylor
Wednesday, 09 October 2024
It’s always fun jabbing at the permanently open wound that is Anglo-French relations, now with added snap post-Brexit, its...
Joe Muggs
Wednesday, 09 October 2024
This record keeps you guessing. It starts off with “Hybrid Romance”, an ambient piece that’s very pretty but has swooping...
Helen Hawkins
Tuesday, 08 October 2024
The latest incarnation of David Mitchell, TV actor, looks at first sight much like the familar one from Peep Show and Back....
Veronica Lee
Tuesday, 08 October 2024
Hard to imagine it now, but just a few years ago Ellen DeGeneres was one of America’s biggest daytime TV stars; her chatshow...
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tv
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?
Joan, ITV1 review - the roller-coaster career of a 1980s jewel thief
Brilliant performance by Sophie Turner as 'The Godmother'
film
Timestalker review – she's lost control again
Alice Lowe directs herself as a woman pursuing the wrong dude, century after century
theartsdesk Q&A: Alice Lowe on 'Timestalker' and what women rue through the ages
The writer, director, and star inserts herself into the history of love
Portraits of Dangerous Women review - quirky indie comedy
Pascal Bergamin explores unlikely friendships in the English countryside
new music
Album: Ded Hyatt - Glossy
A genuinely boggling record mangles a world's worth of pop and avant-garde influences into... something
classical
Kanga, Manchester Collective, Singh, RNCM Manchester review - string ensemble playing at its most rewarding
New classics introduced and a world premiere with a dark story
Hardenberger, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - splendour and a trumpeter's voluntary
Individuality and discipline in Strauss, Stravinsky, Haydn… and more
First Person: conductor Robert Hollingworth on a four-choir rarity by Benevoli
I Fagiolini join with two other choirs for a spectacular in St Martin-in-the-Fields
opera
Blond Eckbert, English Touring Opera review - dark deeds afoot in the woods
Judith Weir’s chamber opera explores Freudian themes through a modern lens
The Marrriage of Figaro, Opera Project, Tobacco Factory, Bristol review - small is beautiful indeed
Mozart opera in the round delivers intimacy and joy
Béatrice et Bénédict, Irish National Opera, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - sung and spoken triumph
Shakespeare from Fiona Shaw ballasts superbly performed Berlioz
theatre
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
Filumena, Theatre Royal Windsor review - Mozartian marriage comedy with pasta sauce
Dazzling Felicity Kendall conquers time in a tour de force of comedic playing
Brace Brace, Royal Court review - too slender to satisfy
New play about the consequences of a plane hijack is energetic but unconvincing
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
comedy
Ellen DeGeneres, Netflix Special review - no mea culpa and few jokes
Former chatshow host’s bizarre take on cancellation
Joe Rogan, Netflix Special review - US podcaster leaves the controversy - and the jokes - at home
Nothing edgy about this hour
Zoë Coombs Marr, Soho Theatre review - stock checks and spreadsheets
Australian comic's autobiographical show
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
visual arts
Lygia Clark: The I and the You, Sonia Boyce: An Awkward Relation, Whitechapel Gallery review - breaking boundaries
Two artists, 50 years apart, invite audience participation
Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit, Tate Modern review - adolescent angst indefinitely extended
The artist who refused to grow up
Monet and London, Courtauld Gallery review - utterly sublime smog
Never has pollution looked so compellingly beautiful
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