theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Helen Hawkins
Saturday, 05 October 2024
What do the cult TV show Squid Game and National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s Lear have in common? Oddly, a K-Pop producer, Jung Jae-il, who has created additional music for Lear....
Adam Sweeting
Saturday, 05 October 2024
If you’re looking for an advertisement for how crime doesn’t pay, Joan will do very nicely. Written by Anna Symon, this six-part series is based on the memoirs of real-life jewel...
Guy Oddy
Saturday, 05 October 2024
With the Pagan festival of Mabon and the Autumnal Equinox only just past us, it seems appropriate for Scandi psychedelic rockers, Goat to provide a soundtrack of celebration as we...
Sarah Kent
Friday, 04 October 2024
In September 1899, Claude Monet booked into a room at the Savoy Hotel. From there he had a good view of Waterloo Bridge and the south bank beyond. Setting up his easel on a...
James Saynor
Friday, 04 October 2024
“Psychopaths sell like hotcakes,” William Holden observed in Sunset Boulevard in 1950, and those individuals have been doing good business for Hollywood before and since.We root...
Aleks Sierz
Friday, 04 October 2024
Queenie is in trouble. Bad trouble. For about a year now, this 68-year-old Indian woman has been forgetful. Losing her car keys; burning rice in the pan; mixing up memories; just...
Robert Hollingworth
Friday, 04 October 2024
I’m sitting in a café in Kraców, Poland, rehearsals finished for the resurrection of a mass setting written nearly 400 years...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 04 October 2024
The Battle for Lakipia is a beautifully filmed and thoughtfully directed documentary that was made over a two-year period....
Tom Carr
Friday, 04 October 2024
From the very first chords of "Yellow" in 2000, Coldplay have been an ever present at the summit of popular music's...
Graham Fuller
Thursday, 03 October 2024
The Old Man and the Land depicts a worn-out sheep farmer going about his dreary business as the seasons pass, darkly and...
Boyd Tonkin
Thursday, 03 October 2024
“Bold, ambitious, and good for the sector.” So said Charlotte Moore, the BBC chief content officer, who currently earns £468...
David Nice
Thursday, 03 October 2024
Nobodaddy, taking its title from Blake’s violent dark-god “Father of Jealousy”, is much more than a dance piece, and Michael...
Tim Cumming
Thursday, 03 October 2024
The first K-Music festival landed in London for than a decade ago, and has brought an eclectic range of bands and musicians...
David Nice
Wednesday, 02 October 2024
As Fiona Shaw’s shiningly free and easy narration told us, Shakespeare’s sparring Beatrice and Benedick are merely...
Jenny Gilbert
Wednesday, 02 October 2024
In many ways Lewis Carroll’s 1865 compendium of literary nonsense is ideal material for ballet. We all like a story we can...
Jack Barron
Wednesday, 02 October 2024
Last year, Wendy Cope’s poem, "The Orange", went viral on TikTok. I’m not totally certain how a poem goes viral, but it did...
Joe Muggs
Wednesday, 02 October 2024
Dan Snaith’s career has been a joyous thing to watch. Almost a quarter of a century the Canadian started out as Manitoba (...
Adam Sweeting
Tuesday, 01 October 2024
Is there no limit to the number of times the comic book heroes and villains from Marvel and DC can be recycled? HBO’s The...
Helen Hawkins
Tuesday, 01 October 2024
The stock of the late 19th century playwright Arthur Wing Pinero has just received a significant boost, thanks to the...
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tv
Joan, ITV1 review - the roller-coaster career of a 1980s jewel thief
Brilliant performance by Sophie Turner as 'The Godmother'
The Penguin, Sky Atlantic review - power, corruption, lies and prosthetics
Colin Farrell makes a beast of himself in Batman spin-off
A Very Royal Scandal, Prime Video review - a fairly sound reimagining, but to what end?
The acting is first-rate, but it has no satisfying dramatic goal
film
Joker: Folie à Deux review - supervillainy laid low
Joaquin Phoenix’s clown crim faces a too-long stretch in the slammer
The Battle for Lakipia review - why post-colonial Kenya is a land of unease
Tensions run high between white farmers and the indigenous people
The Old Man and the Land review - dark secrets of a farming family
Film meets radio in an experimental agro-drama
new music
10 Questions for Black String’s Youn Jeong Heo
K-Music special: The founder of Korea’s finest quartet discusses their intense and otherworldly music
classical
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
BBC Singers, BBCSO, Jeannin, Barbican review - from stormy weather to blue skies
An uplifting centenary party for the great choral survivors
Elisabeth Leonskaja, Wigmore Hall review - a universe of sound and emotion in Schubert’s last three sonatas
Total mastery of epic adventures composed in the face of mortality
opera
Béatrice et Bénédict, Irish National Opera, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - sung and spoken triumph
Shakespeare from Fiona Shaw ballasts superbly performed Berlioz
Il trittico, Welsh National Opera review - welcome back (but not a good sign)
Cast changes but no drop in quality
The Snowmaiden, English Touring Opera review - a rich harvest with modest means
Human warmth, and musical wealth, in Rimsky-Korsakov's fairy-tale
theatre
Lear, Barbican Theatre review - a very stormy saga, Korean-style
Changgeuk Company bring an epic poem quality to the familiar tale
A Tupperware of Ashes, National Theatre review - family and food, love and loss
Tanika Gupta’s new play is a beautifully heartfelt mix of comedy and tragedy
The Cabinet Minister, Menier Chocolate Factory review - sparkling tour de force of a farce
Pinero's play emerges fresh-minted in an exquisite production
dance
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
Resurgence, London City Ballet, Sadler’s Wells review - the phoenix rises yet again
A new 14-strong company reviving a much-loved name is taking ballet to smaller theatres
comedy
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
Adam Sandler, Netflix Special - songs, silliness and deconstructing stand-up
The comic and director Josh Sadie have fun with the form
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
Monet and London, Courtauld Gallery review - utterly sublime smog
Never has pollution looked so compellingly beautiful
Michael Craig-Martin, Royal Academy review - from clever conceptual art to digital decor
A career in art that starts high and ends low
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers, National Gallery review - passions translated into paint
Turmoil made manifest
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