theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Tom Birchenough
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
This opening episode of My Brilliant Friend was a stunning symphony in grey. For any viewers concerned that HBO’s long-awaited Elena Ferrante adaptation might be tempted to...
Chris Harvey
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
There was barely a black-clothed, white-faced Numanoid in sight in the packed auditorium of the Royal Albert Hall as Gary Numan made his first ever appearance at the Victorian...
Veronica Lee
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
Relationships, or rather troubled relationships, are meat and potatoes for stand-up comics. Jessie Cave, who sprang to comic acclaim with her 2015 show I Loved Her, which charted...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 20 November 2018
Karel Zeman’s Invention for Destruction (Vynález zkázy) was, for many years, his best-known film in the West, dubbed into English three years after its 1958 premiere as The...
Marina Vaizey
Monday, 19 November 2018
The toughest subject you can imagine: when, and how, would you choose death over life? This riveting film examined that excruciating dilemma within the legal frameworks on offer...
Sebastian Scotney
Monday, 19 November 2018
The choice of what to go and hear in the London Jazz Festival can be bewildering: this first weekend of its 10-day run presented over 120 events. I managed to attend eight, of...
Glyn Môn Hughes
Monday, 19 November 2018
It probably goes without saying that there will be "dream teams" in a football-mad city like Liverpool. What might be a...
Guy Oddy
Monday, 19 November 2018
Many established artists, when out on tour, can get all a bit bashful about their new material. In fact, it’s not unusual...
Tom Baily
Monday, 19 November 2018
It is appropriate that Keanu Reeves sounds especially croaky and muffled throughout Siberia. Business meetings for his...
Kieron Tyler
Monday, 19 November 2018
Faithful Fairy Harmony is in the tradition of The Beatles’ White Album, Todd Rundgren’s A Wizard, a True Star and The Clash’...
Boyd Tonkin
Sunday, 18 November 2018
Daša Drndić, the Croatian author who died in June aged 71, has posthumously won the second Warwick Prize for Women in...
Alexandra Coghlan
Saturday, 17 November 2018
We’re not good at lack these days. Just look at the concert hall, where increasingly you turn up to find not just an...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 17 November 2018
Beethoven: Symphonies 2 and 7 Wiener Symphoniker/Philippe Jordan (WS/Sony)Philippe Jordan’s cheery face adorns this...
Joseph Walsh
Friday, 16 November 2018
Two years after the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, we return to the Wizarding World once again for the...
David Nice
Friday, 16 November 2018
Forget the latest International Tchaikovsky Competition winner (I almost have; only a dim memory of Dmitry Masleev's playing...
Veronica Lee
Friday, 16 November 2018
The #MeToo movement is barely a year old, but it is already prompting some clever and insightful comedy – from standalone...
Alexandra Coghlan
Friday, 16 November 2018
Political machinations and backroom power-brokering, leadership battles and unscrupulous rivals – if ever there was an opera...
disc of the day
DVD/Blu-ray: Invention for Destruction
A steampunk delight: Karel Zeman's first international success returns
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tv
My Brilliant Friend, Sky Atlantic review - rich revelations of childhood
Elena Ferrante's wonderful world brought to the screen with marvellous care and subtlety
Louis Theroux's Altered States: Choosing Death, BBC Two review - profound and moving
Empathy and humanity from Theroux in a powerful documentary about life's conclusion
Our Classical Century, BBC Four review - enthusiasm and delight
From the trenches to the jazz age, Sir Lenny embarks on an enthralling musical journey
film
DVD/Blu-ray: Invention for Destruction
A steampunk delight: Karel Zeman's first international success returns
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald review - mischief not quite managed
Convoluted mythology stops second Potter prequel from flying
new music
Gary Numan, Royal Albert Hall review - the best night of his life
No 'Cars', but the ageless electropop pioneer is still in the driving seat
EFG London Jazz Festival, first weekend review - Jeff Goldblum a jazz musician?
Bill Frisell mesmerised, Bobby McFerrin enchanted
Florence + The Machine, Genting Arena, Birmingham review - flying the flag for a hopeful future
Florence Welch takes her hippy schtick back on the road with new tunes front and centre
classical
Trpčeski, RLPO, Petrenko, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall review - one composer, many views
Brahmsfest brings a big spectacular from a dream team
Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Cage, Janáček
Dramatic 19th century symphonies and offbeat percussion music, plus a rousing meeting of Czech minds
Kolesnikov, BBCSO, Brabbins, Barbican review - rethought masterpiece, stolid rarity
Uninspired Ethel Smyth Mass follows standing ovation for vivacious Tchaikovsky
opera
War Requiem, English National Opera review - a striking spectacle, but oddly unmoving
A sober and dignified production fails to add value to Britten's score
Simon Boccanegra, Royal Opera review - a timely revival of Verdi's political music-drama
Moshinsky's classic production still serves up the visual goods
The Silver Tassie, BBCSO, Barbican review - a bracing memorial for the WW1 anniversary
An exceptional concert performance brings Turnage's opera back to blistering life
theatre
Macbeth, Shakespeare's Globe review - sexually-charged production draws power from the shadows
A daring counterintuitive reading proves richly rewarding
Hadestown, National Theatre review - new folk musical is hotter than hell
An alternative take on a classic myth produces sizzling results
Pinters Three and Four, Harold Pinter Theatre review - double-bill boasts double-acts to treasure
The Pinter season continues, this time in largely comic form
dance
'It’s more fun to dance in a tutu': Tory Dobrin of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
The artistic director of the Trocks explains how he keeps his ballet parodists on their toes
theartsdesk in Riga - 43,290 Latvians sing and dance for their country
Individual souls conjoined with a passionate belief in peace and music achieve miracles
comedy
Jessie Cave, Soho Theatre review - compelling confessional storytelling
A broken relationship examined with raw wit
Natalie Palamides, Soho Theatre - challenging show about consent
Deft and witty examination of a difficult subject
Ayesha Hazarika, Soho Theatre review - feminism examined
Fascinating and often funny take on the subject
gaming
Red Dead Redemption 2 review - the cowboy drama makes a triumphant return
An ambitious Wild West odyssey that matches epic scale with benchmark skill
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 review – less is more
Solo rations have been relegated from this benchmark war series
visual arts
Edward Burne-Jones, Tate Britain review - time for a rethink?
Wide-ranging exhibition of idiosyncratic English artist, both loved and loathed
Klimt/Schiele, Royal Academy review - the line of gauntness
Elegance and brutality converge in drawings from the Albertina Museum, Vienna
The new V&A Photography Centre review - a new museum to make us proud
'Collecting Photography: From Daguerreotype to Digital' launches the V&A's latest project
latest comments
I find it worrying that one of the conditions of...
Horrible viewing and very Harry Shipman-esque...
Yet another review where the use of a large...
What a brilliant, thoughtful article. I...
“I suppose your preference regarding these...
Too bad the 'deeply rooted verisimilitude' doesn'...
I attended all three of these experiences - and...
'decimation'? Surely this is a most unfortunate...