sun 23/03/2025

theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews

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...
Jonathan Geddes
Sunday, 23 March 2025
It took until the last song before Lauren Mayberry started to well up onstage, which was good going. The singer had mentioned early on the prospect of a hometown Glasgow gig for...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 23 March 2025
The thrill of hearing “Crawdaddy Simone” never wears off. As the September 1965 B-side of the third single by North London R&B band The Syndicats, it attracted next-to no...
Simon Thompson
Saturday, 22 March 2025
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra has had to put up with its fair share of artist cancellations over the last month, and the ensuing games of musical chairs led to the somewhat...
Saskia Baron
Saturday, 22 March 2025
Brief History of a Family is a psychological thriller with a story familiar to anyone who has seen Ripley, Saltburn or Six Degrees of Separation. A clever young man with low...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 22 March 2025
 Donizetti: Songs Vols. 3 & 4 Michael Spyres (tenor), Carlo Rizzi (piano) – Vol. 3, Marie-Nicole Lemieux (mezzo-soprano), Giulio Zappa (piano) – Vol. 4. (Opera Rara)“The...
Thomas H Green
Saturday, 22 March 2025
Selena Gomez is the enormously successful Disney child star who grew up to be a Hollywood actor and global pop sensation. As...
David Nice
Friday, 21 March 2025
Tamino in the operating theatre hallucinating serpents? Sarastro’s acolytes wheeling lit-up plasma packs? From the central...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 21 March 2025
Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other is a documentary portrait of photographer Joel Meyerowitz, acclaimed for...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 21 March 2025
The power struggle between New York crime bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello is one of the foundational stories of the...
Thomas H Green
Friday, 21 March 2025
For fans of The Horrors, the headline here is that, 20 years into the career, for their sixth album, the band have lost two...
Nick Hasted
Thursday, 20 March 2025
François Ozon is France’s master of sly secrets, burying hard truths in often dazzling surfaces, from Swimming Pool’s erotic...
David Nice
Thursday, 20 March 2025
Imagine if Bach had set Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili’s allegory of Beauty breaking free from Pleasure with the guidance of...
Kieron Tyler
Thursday, 20 March 2025
The body language fascinates. Mercury Rev’s frontman Jonathan Donahue could be playing a theramin. The arm movements fit the...
Helen Hawkins
Thursday, 20 March 2025
Held up by the censors in India though screened at Cannes and nominated for an International Oscar, Sandhya Suri’s 2024 film...
Jenny Gilbert
Thursday, 20 March 2025
1965 was a year of change in Britain. It saw the abolition of the death penalty and the arrival of the Race Relations Act....
Mark Kidel
Thursday, 20 March 2025
Lizz Wright’s exquisite singing breaks all boundaries between soul, gospel and jazz. In so doing she channels many...
Guy Oddy
Thursday, 20 March 2025
Wardruna are something of a modern musical phenomenon. Part Scandinavian folk revival, part prog rock epic and part pagan...
Sebastian Scotney
Thursday, 20 March 2025
There was a telling remark in Wynton Marsalis’s recent interview with Katty Kay for the BBC show “Influential”. Talking...

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★★★★★ LIZZ WRIGHT, BARBICAN Soul, jazz and gospel seamlessly mixed

★★★★ IL TRIONFO DEL TEMPO E DEL DISINGANNO, IBO, WHELAN, ST GEORGE'S HANOVER SQUARE Handel’s journey of a soul

★★★★ ADOLESCENCE, NETFLIX Stephen Graham battles the phantom menace of the internet

DIRECTOR FRANCOIS OZON ON 'WHEN AUTUMN FALL' The modern French master reflects on ageing, useful lies and country secrets in his new slow crime film

THEARTSDESK Q&A: Indian star Radhika Apte on 'Sister Midnight'

★★★★ ROMEO AND JULIET, ROYAL BALLET Shakespeare without the words, with music to die for

★★ FLOW The Oscar-winning animated creature feature somehow doesn't work

disc of the day

Album: Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco - I Said I Love You First

An album by a pair of loved-up Hollywood celebs that is, whisper it, rather good

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?

film

Brief History of a Family review - glossy Chinese psychological thriller feels shallow

Immaculately crafted family drama aimed at international art house audiences

The Alto Knights review - double dose of De Niro doesn't hit the spot

Barry Levinson's Mafia saga drifts gently into the sunset

new music

Lauren Mayberry, Barrowland, Glasgow review - solo star stays too close to the day job

The Chvrches singer mixed some great tunes with an overly heavy sound.

Music Reissues Weekly: Too Far Out - Beat, Mod & R&B From 304 Holloway Road 1963-1966

Maverick producer Joe Meek’s maximum-impact approach to the beat-group scene

Album: Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco - I Said I Love You First

An album by a pair of loved-up Hollywood celebs that is, whisper it, rather good

classical

Naumov, SCO, Egarr, Queen's Hall, Edinburgh review - orchestral magic rescues some punishing music

Hard-driven Beethoven, monotonous Eötvös, some light from Kernis

Classical CDs: Shipping lines, sabre dances and sea lice

Neglected piano concertos, Italian art songs and new music for trombones

opera

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Die Zauberflöte, Royal Academy of Music review - first-rate youth makes for a moving experience

The production takes time to match Mozart's depths, but gets there halfway through

Mansfield Park, Guildhall School review - fun when frothy, chugging in romantic entanglements

Jonathan Dove’s strip-cartoon Jane Austen works well as a showcase for students

theatre

Dear England, National Theatre review - extra time for stirring soccer classic
James Graham adds a neat coda to his ode to decency in sport
Weather Girl, Soho Theatre review - the apocalypse as surreal black comedy
A Californian weather girl copes with fires inside and outside her head
Clueless: The Musical, Trafalgar Studios review - a perfectly manicured update
KT Tunstall's new score brings bite and momentum to a high octane evening

dance

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Romeo and Juliet, Royal Ballet review - Shakespeare without the words, with music to die for

Kenneth MacMillan's first and best-loved masterpiece turns 60

Light of Passage, Royal Ballet review - Crystal Pite’s cosmic triptych powers back

Total music theatre takes us from the hell of exile to separation at heaven’s gates

comedy

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Matt Forde, Touring review - politics, poo and Viagra

The personal and political collide

Harry Hill, Wilton's Music Hall review - madcap comic on terrific form

Utterly daft mix of new material and favourite old characters

Books

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Jonathan Buckley: One Boat review - a shore thing

Buckley’s 13th novel is a powerful reflection on intimacy and grief

latest comments

Thank you for this fantastic review. While I...

An eagle-eyed reader, Katja von Schuttenbach,...

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