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Matt Wolf
Tuesday, 13 November 2018
The West End is specialising in two-parters of late. To Imperium and The Inheritance we can add the latest duo of Harold Pinter one-acts that has opened in time to spread ripples...
Boyd Tonkin
Tuesday, 13 November 2018
Even in a large hall, very good things can come in small packages. In advance, partisans of the Wigmore Hall or some other dedicated chamber space might have feared that the...
Tim Cornwell
Tuesday, 13 November 2018
War Horse at the National Theatre on Sunday’s Armistice Day centenary: there were medalled veterans and at least one priest in the rows in front, dark suits and poppies all around...
Liz Thomson
Tuesday, 13 November 2018
What to make of The Simon & Garfunkel Story, which began a week-long residency at London’s Vaudeville Theatre last night and which tours in the new year? A success “from...
Thomas H Green
Tuesday, 13 November 2018
Enough hyping! This month, without further ado, let’s head straight to the reviews…VINYL OF THE MONTHLOR Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (Lo Records)With Public Service Broadcasting’s The...
Thomas H Green
Tuesday, 13 November 2018
London’s Palace Theatre this week celebrated the thousandth performance of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which opened there back in 2016. Like everything else JK Rowing puts...
Saskia Baron
Monday, 12 November 2018
Peter Jackson has form when it comes to re-examining cinema history. In 1995 he made Forgotten Silver, a documentary about...
Heather Neill
Monday, 12 November 2018
Robert Hastie is a little late for our meeting. Directing Shakespeare's darkest tragedy in London while also running...
Sebastian Scotney
Monday, 12 November 2018
Missa in Angustiis. Mass in troubled times. There was a logic in programming Haydn’s D minor Mass on the Armistice Centenary...
Katherine Waters
Monday, 12 November 2018
When, in 1853, Edward Burne-Jones (or Edward Jones as he then was) went up to Exeter College, Oxford, it could hardly have...
Nick Hasted
Monday, 12 November 2018
Steve McQueen’s progress from video artist to Oscar-winning director has been deceptively smooth. The chasm between Bobby...
Kieron Tyler
Monday, 12 November 2018
My Name is Safe in Your Mouth takes off with “Above You, Around You”, its fourth track. Up to that point, progress has been...
Alexandra Coghlan
Sunday, 11 November 2018
In a week of flickering memorial candles and cascading poppies we’ve all been asked to contemplate the pity of war – to...
Marina Vaizey
Sunday, 11 November 2018
Dramatic Exchanges is a dazzling array of correspondence, stretching over more than a century, between National Theatre...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 11 November 2018
When Jazz on a Summer's Day was first seen in American cinemas in March 1960, it showed that seeing popular music live could...
Howard Male
Sunday, 11 November 2018
Whatever happened to real singer-songwriters? That is to say the kind of artist that raged against society’s ills in one...
Aleks Sierz
Saturday, 10 November 2018
Because of the #MeToo movement, and the revival of feminist protest, the theme of sisterhood now has a much stronger...
disc of the day
CD: Imogen Heap - The Music of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
The cult alt-pop star's soundtrack finally receives a release
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tv
They Shall Not Grow Old, BBC Two review - Peter Jackson's Great War finale
Dazzling reworking of faded footage from the Western front
WW1: The Last Tommies, BBC Four review - Great War stories
Centrepiece of the BBC's World War One season makes for remarkable oral history
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Netflix review - girl power goes supernatural
Bold and politicised update of teenage witch saga
new music
theartsdesk on Vinyl 44: Thom Yorke, Primal Scream, Elvis, Noisferatu, R.E.M., Bauhaus, Mo'Wax and more
The wildest, most wide-ranging monthly record reviews under the sun
CD: Imogen Heap - The Music of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
The cult alt-pop star's soundtrack finally receives a release
CD: Liela Moss - My Name is Safe in Your Mouth
Arresting first solo album from the voice of The Duke Spirit
classical
Thibaudet/Batiashvili/Capuçon Trio, Barbican review – a supergroup to savour
Three solo stars come together in ego-free harmony
LSO, Roth, Barbican - not enough pathos, but a remarkable step-in
Bass William Thomas, still a student, stepped in and shone in Bartók’s Cantata Profana
Classical CDs Weekly: A Walk with Ivor Gurney, Yiddish Glory, For the Fallen
Three discs for Remembrance weekend
opera
The Silver Tassie, BBCSO, Barbican review - a bracing memorial for the WW1 anniversary
An exceptional concert performance brings Turnage's opera back to blistering life
The Rake's Progress, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - supreme fluency from Eden to Bedlam
Toby Spence captures every facet of Tom Rakewell in perfectly detailed Stravinsky
Serse, Fagioli, Il Pomo d'Oro, Barbican review - a night in counter-tenor heaven
Daredevil artistry brings Handel's tragi-comedy to life
theatre
Pinters Three and Four, Harold Pinter Theatre review - double-bill boasts double-acts to treasure
The Pinter season continues, this time in largely comic form
War Horse, National Theatre review - still touching after all these years
International sensation stirs the heart anew in its return home
The Simon & Garfunkel Story, Vaudeville Theatre review - more tribute act than theatre piece
Fakin' it: a production as spare on script as it is on visuals
dance
'It’s more fun to dance in a tutu': Tory Dobrin of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
The artistic director of the Trocks explains how he keeps his ballet parodists on their toes
theartsdesk in Riga - 43,290 Latvians sing and dance for their country
Individual souls conjoined with a passionate belief in peace and music achieve miracles
comedy
Ayesha Hazarika, Soho Theatre review - feminism examined
Fascinating and often funny take on the subject
Ivo Graham, Soho Theatre review - the perils of growing up
Going deep into personal material unearths lots of laughs
gaming
Red Dead Redemption 2 review - the cowboy drama makes a triumphant return
An ambitious Wild West odyssey that matches epic scale with benchmark skill
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 review – less is more
Solo rations have been relegated from this benchmark war series
visual arts
Edward Burne-Jones, Tate Britain review - time for a rethink?
Wide-ranging exhibition of idiosyncratic English artist, both loved and loathed
Klimt/Schiele, Royal Academy review - the line of gauntness
Elegance and brutality converge in drawings from the Albertina Museum, Vienna
The new V&A Photography Centre review - a new museum to make us proud
'Collecting Photography: From Daguerreotype to Digital' launches the V&A's latest project
latest comments
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