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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...
Mary, Queen of Scots, English National Opera review - heroic effort for an overcooked history lesson
David Nice
Monday, 17 February 2025
Genius doesn't always tally with equal opportunities, to paraphrase Doris Lessing. Opera houses have a duty to put on new works by women composers; sometimes an instant classic...
Aleks Sierz
Monday, 17 February 2025
Since when has new writing become so passionless? Mike Bartlett is one of the country’s premiere playwrights and his new play, Unicorn, is about radical sexuality and desire. It’s...
Tim Cumming
Monday, 17 February 2025
On the first date of a 17-concert tour that had its preview at Celtic Connections in January, Across the Evening Sky begins with the liminal, predatory dangers of associating in...
Florence Roberts
Monday, 17 February 2025
Imagine: you take your seat at the best restaurant in town, the waiter arrives with a flourish to fill your water glass, you hold it out and he pours. And pours, and pours, and...
Mark Kidel
Monday, 17 February 2025
There is an atmosphere of otherworldly stillness within the stony womb of a large dilapidated church in Bristol, at the bottom of St Michael’s Hill, the winding road that climbs...
Joe Muggs
Monday, 17 February 2025
The question of personality in abstract and ambient music has always been a fascinating one. Without conventional signifiers...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 16 February 2025
Sharks were formed in 1972 by bassist Andy Fraser after he left Free. There were two albums, line-up changes and ripples...
Thomas H Green
Saturday, 15 February 2025
Ro first saw Fat Dog, before anyone had heard of them, at the Windmill in Brixton in front of a crowd of about 25 people....
Boyd Tonkin
Saturday, 15 February 2025
George Gershwin called one of his early classic songs, first created by Fred and Adele Astaire, “Fascinating Rhythm”. It was...
Aleks Sierz
Saturday, 15 February 2025
I always advocate in favour of more sci-fi plays, and over the past decade there have been a gratifying number of them. But...
Mark Kidel
Saturday, 15 February 2025
Park Jiha is a super-talented and gloriously inspired Korean multi-instrumentalist. Her new album follows Philos (2018) and...
Nick Hasted
Friday, 14 February 2025
In his first weeks in office, Harrison Ford’s US president survives an assassination attempt inside the White House, goes to...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 14 February 2025
Russia.It’s impossible to be ambivalent towards that word, that country, indeed that idea, one so very similar to our own,...
David Nice
Friday, 14 February 2025
Does any living composer write better for choirs, or more demandingly when circumstances allow, than James MacMillan?...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 14 February 2025
Ridley Scott’s 2001 film Black Hawk Down was a technically superb blockbuster bristling with thunderous action sequences and...
Katie Colombus
Friday, 14 February 2025
Having recently watched the charming animation Marcelle The Shell With Shoes On with my nine-year-old son, I was going to...
James Saynor
Friday, 14 February 2025
The Refugee Movie is rapidly becoming a genre unto itself, with elements of suspense and humanism woven together into...
Ibi Keita
Friday, 14 February 2025
After more than 10 years away, Rizzle Kicks are finally back, and it feels long overdue. Their music was a huge part of my...
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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.
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tv
Surviving Black Hawk Down, Netflix review - the real story behind Ridley Scott's Oscar-winner
Documentary series looks at the 1993 'Battle of Mogadishu' from both sides
Vietnam: The War That Changed America, Apple TV+ review - painful and poignant stories from a terrible conflict
Fifty years later, the wounds still haven't healed
Paradise, Disney+ review - enigmatic drama with an unknown destination
Dan Fogelman's new series has an excellent cast but a recycled premise
film
Captain America: Brave New World review - talking loud, saying nothing
Muddled filler between Avengers films which hardly deserves Harrison Ford
Memoir of a Snail review - deliciously offbeat Australian animation
A darkly whimsical stop-motion masterpiece examining the shells we create for ourselves
To a Land Unknown review - the migrant hustle
A slick tale of two refugees striving and surviving in Athens
new music
Josienne Clarke, Across The Evening Sky, Kings Place review - celebrating Sandy Denny
The contemporary singer-songwriter holds a torch for the late, great Sandy Denny
Patrick Duff, The Mount Without, Bristol review - sacred music for the soul
A dilapidated Bristol church brought back to vibrant life
classical
Sidorova, Philharmonia, Alsop, Royal Festival Hall review - ladies of the dance
Vitality, virtuosity and sensuality on a pan-American trip
MacMillan's Ordo Virtutum, BBC Singers, Jeannin, Milton Court review - dramatic journey of a medieval soul
Choral music's finest advocate runs the gamut in an epic battle of heaven and hell
Gilliver, Liverman, Rangwanasha, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - a rainbow of British music
Poetic Maconchy and Walton, surging Vaughan Williams bursting its confines
opera
Mary, Queen of Scots, English National Opera review - heroic effort for an overcooked history lesson
Heidi Stober delivers as beleaguered regent, but Thea Musgrave's opera is limiting
Festen, Royal Opera review - firing on every front
No slack in Mark-Anthony Turnage's operatic treatment of the visceral first Dogme film
theatre
Unicorn, Garrick Theatre review - wordy and emotionless desire
New West End drama about spicing up marriage is oddly lacking in passion
More Life, Royal Court review - posthuman tragedy fails to come alive
A new sci-fi gothic horror about life after death is intriguing, but flawed
Three Sisters, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - Chekhov's anatomy lesson on the human condition
Russia - but also here, there and everywhere
dance
Vollmond, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris Charmatz, Sadler's Wells review - clunkily-named company shows its lighter side
A new generation of dancers brings zest, humour and playfulness to late Bausch
Phaedra + Minotaur, Royal Ballet and Opera, Linbury Theatre review - a double dose of Greek myth
Opera and dance companies share a theme in this terse but affecting double bill
comedy
Nina Conti: Whose Face Is It Anyway?, Brighton Dome review - a melee of jubilant spontaneity
The ventriloquist-comedian's improvised hour-long outing is skilful and fabulously entertaining
Amy Gledhill, Soho Theatre review - delightfully bawdy take on serious subjects
Best show winner at the Edinburgh Fringe
Books
Philip Marsden: Under a Metal Sky review - rock and awe
Myths, mines, and mankind combine in this wide-eyed reading of the earth beneath our feet
Jacqueline Feldman: Precarious Lease review - living on the edge
The trials and triumphs of a city’s margins are observed by an outside eye
visual arts
Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet, Tate Modern review - an exhaustive and exhausting show
Flashing lights, beeps and buzzes are diverting, but quickly pall
latest comments
Well- a great number collected their coats and...
This review is at odds with most of the excellent...
No, David was just fine and was by no means...
Did David get out of bed the wrong side when he...
Attended this show recently. The majority of the...
Thanks M. Smith for picking up and commenting on...
Didn't come across as muddy. I've never heard sun...
Thank you for this thoughful review, Mr Nice. I...