theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Sebastian Scotney
Sunday, 24 October 2021
One German writer found a neat yet teasing way to sum up the difference between Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969), the first film in the Italian director’s “German trilogy”,...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 24 October 2021
Over 1974 to 1978 Graham Collier issued five albums on his own imprint Mosaic. There was another in 1985 and eight releases on Mosaic by other musicians, but for its first four...
Rachel Halliburton
Saturday, 23 October 2021
Jaws was the Moby Dick of late 20th century capitalism, a fantasy about fear and the unknown for a society that had rarely felt more secure and powerful. Despite the tremors...
Miranda Heggie
Saturday, 23 October 2021
Kicking off a brand new partnership between the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Hockley Social Club, this first ever Symphonic Session saw a string quartet from the CBSO...
Adam Sweeting
Saturday, 23 October 2021
This Korean-made show suddenly became Netflix’s all-time greatest hit, demonstrating once again the irresistible allure of a game show which ruthlessly massacres its contestants....
Joe Muggs
Saturday, 23 October 2021
George Evelyn is one of British music’s more interesting characters. With equal parts Yorkshire bluntness, hip hop swagger and cosmic dreams, he has filled Nightmares On Wax’s...
Mark Sheerin
Friday, 22 October 2021
Jacqueline de Jong doesn’t want to talk politics. But this should have been foreseeable. After all, she has travelled to...
Robert Beale
Friday, 22 October 2021
The youthful New Zealand-born conductor Gemma New and British cellist Laura van der Heijden between them set the Hallé quite...
Matt Wolf
Friday, 22 October 2021
Can we turn off the script and simply leave the music to do its soul-stirring bit? That's likely to be a not uncommon...
Shumaila Hemani
Friday, 22 October 2021
In early 2020, the year that soon saw COVID-19 lockdown, I served on the music faculty for Semester at Sea, Spring...
Nick Hasted
Friday, 22 October 2021
Lana Del Rey’s eighth album would tell her story “and pretty much nothing else”, she teased, as her planned, near instant...
Rachel Halliburton
Thursday, 21 October 2021
Sebastião Salgado has carved out his career by documenting the unimaginable. He takes areas of life all too often...
Katie Colombus
Thursday, 21 October 2021
Laura Marling was one of the most active lockdown performance artists, doing her bit to play solo streams to a captive and...
Jonathan Geddes
Thursday, 21 October 2021
Upon emerging onstage at the Barrowland, Fontaines DC took time to pass flowers into the crowd. Aside from the occasional...
Liz Thomson
Thursday, 21 October 2021
I always thought those celebrity duets albums, recorded across the miles – or sometimes with someone who had long since...
Laura De Lisle
Wednesday, 20 October 2021
Grenfell: Value Engineering isn’t actually a play. It’s an edited version of the testimony heard by the Grenfell Tower...
Jenny Gilbert
Wednesday, 20 October 2021
Ballet dancers, even the greatest, don’t expect longevity. There are no Maggie Smiths or Helen Mirrens in the ballet world...
Demetrios Matheou
Wednesday, 20 October 2021
I’d venture that Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi classic is an almost perfect adaptation. It’s...
Bernard Hughes
Wednesday, 20 October 2021
Single-composer programmes can be a bit dicey and there was a bit of trepidation approaching this one as Steve Reich is not...
tv
Squid Game, Netflix review - murderous game show hits the ratings jackpot
South Korean series mixes slaughter and greed with a dash of moral philosophy
Ridley Road, BBC One review - Jewish community fights Nazi nightmare in 1960s London
Enlightenment about a resurgence of English Fascism wrapped up in a well-acted thriller
DVD/Blu-ray: Maigret - The Complete Series
Entertaining, idiomatic Simenon adaptation, brilliantly cast
film
Dune review - awesome display of sci-fi world-building
Timothée Chalamet leads a sterling cast in Denis Villeneuve's sandy science fiction epic
new music
Music Reissues Weekly: Graham Collier - British Conversations
Previously unissued suite enhances understanding of the British jazz composer, bassist and bandleader
Album: Nightmares On Wax - Shout Out! To Freedom...
Leeds via Ibiza's space-soul master heads skwyards
classical
CBSO Quartet, Hockley Social Club, Birmingham review - unveiling of innovative new partnership
Classical music meets street food in first of a bold series
Van der Heijden, Hallé, New, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - rising to challenges
Youth, enthusiasm, passion and skill bring a demanding programme to life
First Person: ethnomusicologist Shumaila Hemani on global musical traditions and Concert for Afghanistan
No boundaries between east and west, north and south, in tonight's live music-making
opera
Die ägyptische Helena, Fulham Opera review - mythological mess impressively handled
Ambitious company works wonders on Richard Strauss's most problematic opera
Bernstein Double Bill, Opera North review - fractured relationships in song and dance
Heartbreak and strife from a pair of Leeds institutions
Don Pasquale, Glyndebourne Tour review - winning comeback for a sturdy veteran
Sweet spots abound in Donizetti's much-loved sugar-daddy romp
theatre
The Shark Is Broken, New Ambassadors Theatre review - how Spielberg's first blockbuster almost didn't happen
This shark-tooth-sharp comedy provides a behind-the-scenes glance at "Jaws"
Grenfell: Value Engineering, The Tabernacle review - bruising, necessary theatre
Edited Inquiry transcripts expose the hypocrisy and incompetence behind the tragedy
Love and Other Acts of Violence, Donmar Warehouse review - snappy and tightly intelligent but flawed
How do traumas from former generations affect how we behave in the present?
dance
L'Heure Exquise, Linbury Theatre review - an exquisite tragedy in miniature
Alessandra Ferri marks her 40 years in ballet with a remarkable solo turn
Bernstein Double Bill, Opera North review - fractured relationships in song and dance
Heartbreak and strife from a pair of Leeds institutions
The Dante Project, Royal Ballet review - a towering achievement
A stupendous score by Thomas Adès powers this inspiring undertaking
comedy
Dave Chappelle: The Closer, Netflix review - race and class examined
US comic is equal opportunities offender
Jason Manford, London Palladium review - lockdown laughs and feelgood fun
Worth the wait for this Covid-affected tour
Blithe Spirit, Harold Pinter Theatre review - an amusing, if dated, revival of the Coward classic
Jennifer Saunders delivers a fine turn as the celebrated Madame Arcati
Books
Mary Wellesley: Hidden Hands review - passion in the parchment
Medieval manuscripts and their forgotten artist-authors come to life
Marcin Wicha: Things I Didn’t Throw Out review - the stories told by stacks of stuff
Connecting a mother's helpless love of things with questions of presence and personhood
Jonathan Franzen: Crossroads review - can goodness ever be its own reward?
The first volume of Franzen's new family saga leaves you wanting more
visual arts
'Of course art doesn't change the world': Situationist artist Jacqueline de Jong on violence, eroticism and the importance of humour
The Dutch veteran's first UK retrospective has opened at MOSTYN in Wales
Documenting the unimaginable: photographer Sebastião Salgado talks about climate change, dodging caimans and changing perspectives
How does Western behaviour risk turning the Amazonian paradise into a hell?
Yoko Ono, Mend Piece, Whitechapel Gallery review – funny and sad in equal measure
A sign of the times in broken crockery
latest comments
Very good review. I was only able to hear the...
Jennifer Saunders was outstanding in my opinion.
I also attended this concert. The fact is,...
Times please fact check! The word 'Choreography...
Omg, one of the best concerts I have ever seen!...
“Patti Smith has been making rabble-rousing punk...
I have just discovered that the Library Theatre...
Thank you for posting this. Woody: your...