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Theartsdesk
Friday, 31 January 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...
Liz Thomson
Monday, 20 January 2025
It’s been five years since the last studio album by the inestimable Mary Chapin Carpenter, the lyrical and intimate The Dirt and the Stars, recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World...
Veronica Lee
Monday, 20 January 2025
Ben Elton loves a scrap. The Motormouth of yesteryear, who made his name attacking Margaret Thatcher and her policies (and being attacked by the right in turn) now wades into so...
Nick Hasted
Sunday, 19 January 2025
David Lynch’s final two features mapped a haunted Hollywood of curdled innocence and back-alley eeriness. Mulholland Drive (2001) seemed the ultimate LA noir, till Inland Empire (...
Aleks Sierz
Sunday, 19 January 2025
Most Brits don’t know much about South Africa today, but we do know about house values, so this new comedy by South African playwright and screenwriter Amy Jephta is...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 19 January 2025
On 26 September 1966, The Twilights set-off from Australia to Britain. The journey, on the liner the Castel Felice, took six weeks. A day after boarding they learned their sixth...
Rachel Halliburton
Saturday, 18 January 2025
What better way to start a season about the Earth than by looking back on it from an astronaut’s perspective? At a time when...
Tim Cumming
Saturday, 18 January 2025
The Lovell sisters Rebecca and Megan can be heard supporting Ringo Starr on his new album of country songs, while at the...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 17 January 2025
Being unknowable has been almost as much of a preoccupation for the erstwhile Robert Zimmerman as writing songs. Previously...
Robert Beale
Friday, 17 January 2025
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. But in Love Life, Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner’s musical...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 17 January 2025
Another new release opens with the sounds of people in bed playing over the credits, but these are not Babygirl’s sighs of a...
Joe Muggs
Friday, 17 January 2025
Of the big UK indie bands of the 00s wave, Bloc Party were always the most austerely art-rockish. Where Arctic Monkeys,...
Rachel Halliburton
Thursday, 16 January 2025
Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela took the Barbican by storm last night with a thrilling...
David Nice
Thursday, 16 January 2025
This was always going to be Jakub Hrůša’s night, his first at the Royal Opera since performances of Wagner’s Lohengrin won...
Sebastian Scotney
Thursday, 16 January 2025
This concert was an effusion of pure joy. Billed as the German National Orchestra, the Bundesjugendorchester (Federal Youth...
Veronica Lee
Thursday, 16 January 2025
By all accounts Chris McCausland had to be persuaded to take part in the most recent series of Strictly Come Dancing, which...
Kieron Tyler
Thursday, 16 January 2025
Four of Humanhood’s 13 tracks are short, impressionistic mood pieces. Between 48 seconds and just-over a minute-and-a-half...
Helen Hawkins
Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Into a world of grooming gangs, human trafficking and senior prelates resigning over child abuse cases comes Oliver!, Lionel...
Adam Sweeting
Wednesday, 15 January 2025
In the late Eighties and Nineties, Tony Slattery became one of the most ubiquitous faces on television, appearing regularly...
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disc of the day
Album review: Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis & Karine Polwart – Looking For the Thread
It's only January but this is an album of the year
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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?
tv
What's the Matter with Tony Slattery?, BBC Two review - absorbing but troubling search for answers
RIP TONY SLATTERY How mental illness cut short a brilliant showbusiness career
American Primeval, Netflix review - nightmare on the Wild Frontier
Peter Berg's Western drama is grim but gripping
Lockerbie: A Search for Truth, Sky Atlantic review - Colin Firth stars in gruelling dramatisation of the 1988 terror attack
Will we ever hear the full story of what happened to Pan Am Flight 103?
film
David Lynch: In Dreams (1946-2025)
The director rewired cinema with nightmare logic, an underground ethos and weird, wondrous innocence
A Complete Unknown review - how does it feel?
Timothée Chalamet brings it all back home as Bob Dylan
Vermiglio review - a simple tale, simply but beautifully told
Maura Delpero’s award-winner salutes the world of her childhood as it ebbs away
new music
Album review: Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis & Karine Polwart – Looking For the Thread
It's only January but this is an album of the year
Music Reissues Weekly: The Twilights - Twilights Time The Complete 60s Recordings
Australian pop group which recorded at Abbey Road but remained a local sensation
Album: Larkin Poe - Bloom
Heavy blues-rock riffery guides the Lovell sisters’ introspective new songs
classical
Sun Rings, Sacconi Quartet, Festival Voices, Kings Place review - lift-off for an exhilarating voyage into the unknown
A suitably radiant interpretation of a Terry Riley epic
Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, Dudamel, Barbican review - an epic journey from gossamer-like intimacy to apocalyptic rage
An orchestra on top form in Mahler's Third Symphony despite swirling controversies
German National Orchestra, Marshall, Cadogan Hall review - sheer youthful exuberance
Teenagers on tour bring effusive music-making
opera
Love Life, Opera North review - Lerner and Weill's blast into the past
Time-travelling tale of love and despair - the first 'concept musical' revived
Jenůfa, Royal Opera review - electrifying details undermined by dead space
Knife-edge conducting and singing, but non-realistic production is weaker in revival
theatre
A Good House, Royal Court review – provocative, but imperfect
South African satire about racism, sexism, home ownership and community politics
Oliver!, Gielgud Theatre review - Lionel Bart's 1960 masterpiece is Bourne again
An intimate staging and superb casting make this a superior West End production
The Maids, Jermyn Street Theatre review - new broom sweeps clean in fierce revival
Class, in its 21st century manifestation, colours much performed play
dance
Nutcracker, English National Ballet, Coliseum review - Tchaikovsky and his sweet tooth rule supreme
New production's music, sweets, and hordes of exuberant children make this a hot ticket
comedy
Chris McCausland, Winchester Theatre Royal review - Strictly winner as cheerfully cynical as ever
Back to the day job telling gags
Books
Best of 2024: Books
As 2024 comes to an end, we look back at the books that have thrilled and enthralled us
William J. Mann: Bogie & Bacall review - beyond the screen
Why we're still in love with Bogart and Bacall, and their legendary Hollywood romance
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
Thank you!
Agreed. No real french dynamic, thin story...
It is on BBC Opera on 3 on February 8 https...
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Will the performance be recorded in entirety?...
You've obviously made your mind up about this,...
This problem of inaudible dialogue seems to be...
An extraordinary performance - a privilege to see...