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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...
Tim Cumming
Saturday, 17 May 2025
Songlines Encounters is your round-the-world ticket to great world music and performances, a chance to travel widely in music and culture without the burden of check-ins, passport...
Matt Wolf
Saturday, 17 May 2025
The water proves newly inviting in The Deep Blue Sea, Terence Rattigan's mournful 1952 play that some while ago established its status as an English classic. Lindsay Posner's...
James Saynor
Saturday, 17 May 2025
There’s nothing more healthy than dissing your own dad, and filmmaker Amalia Ulman says that her old man was “a Gen X deadbeat edgelord skater” when she was growing up in the...
Graham Rickson
Friday, 16 May 2025
Brahms: Lieder Christian Gerhaher (baritone), Gerold Huber (piano) (Sony)The concert I attended of Brahms Lieder in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford in October 2024, with...
Thomas H Green
Friday, 16 May 2025
As every social space in Brighton once again transforms into a mire of self-important music biz sorts loudly bellowing about “waterfalling on Spotify”, it’s also a great time for...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 16 May 2025
If you compiled a list of favourite TV series from the last couple of decades, you’d find that Zoë Telford has appeared in...
David Nice
Friday, 16 May 2025
It was a daring idea to mark Ravel’s 150th birthday year with a single concert packing in all his works for solo piano. Jean...
Graham Fuller
Friday, 16 May 2025
Good One is a generation-and-gender gap drama that mostly unfolds during a weekend hiking and camping trip in the Catskills...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 16 May 2025
It’s hard to say who is going to enjoy E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea. Admirers of the modernist designer-...
Ibi Keita
Friday, 16 May 2025
Rico Nasty’s new album LETHAL signals a shift in direction, but whether it is a bold evolution or a step towards something...
Sebastian Scotney
Thursday, 15 May 2025
In Emmanuel Courcol’s drama The Marching Band (En Fanfare in French, and also released as My Brother's Band), a...
Tim Cumming
Thursday, 15 May 2025
Lucy Farrell, one quarter of the brilliant, award-winning Anglo-Scots band Furrow Collective, and a solo artist whose...
Rachel Halliburton
Thursday, 15 May 2025
Ava Pickett’s award-winning début play, 1536, is a foul-mouthed, furious, frenetically funny ride through the lives of three...
Veronica Lee
Thursday, 15 May 2025
From the creative team that brought you The Play That Goes Wrong in 2012 (and assorted sequels) comes this spy caper. As...
Guy Oddy
Thursday, 15 May 2025
Metalhorse is a concept album that uses visions of a dilapidated funfair as a metaphor for life’s various ups and downs. It...
Helen Hawkins
Wednesday, 14 May 2025
There is so much that is right about Jonathan Kent’s new production of House of Games – the casting, the staging, the...
David Nice
Wednesday, 14 May 2025
William Byrd, Arnold Schoenberg and their respective acolytes go cheek by jowl, crash into one another, soothe, infuriate...
Thomas H Green
Wednesday, 14 May 2025
Danish singer MØ is a paradox. Initially she appeared to be another Scandi electro-pop princess of the bangers. The monster...
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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
theartsdesk Q&A: Zoë Telford on playing a stressed-out psychiatrist in ITV's 'Malpractice'
She nearly became a dancer, but now she's one of TV's most familiar faces
The Trunk, Netflix review - stylish, noir-ish Korean drama wrapped around a beguiling love story
Unusual psychological study of a stranger paid to save a toxic marriage
Malpractice, ITV1, Series 2 review - fear and loathing in the psychiatric unit
Powerful return of Grace Ofori-Attah's scathing medical drama
film
Good One review - a life lesson in the wild with her dad and his pal
A wise-beyond-her-years teen discovers male limitations in a deft indie drama
E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea review - dull docu-fiction take on the designer-architect
Iconic Irish modernist Eileen Gray gets an artsy and overly reverential appraisal
new music
Songlines Encounters, Kings Place review - West African and Anatolian magic
Setting the scene for a weekend of close musical encounters from across the globe
The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a dip into Thursday
Running the gamut from Japanese hip-house to Welsh LGBT stadium pop
classical
Classical CDs: Jelly Babies, porridge and kazoos
German art songs, French piano concertos and entertaining contemporary music
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Wigmore Hall review - too big a splash in complete Ravel
Panache but little inner serenity in a risky three-part marathon
Karim Said, Leighton House review - adventures from Byrd to Schoenberg
The Jordanian pianist presents a magic carpet of dizzyingly contrasting styles
opera
Giulio Cesare, The English Concert, Bicket, Barbican review - 10s across the board in perfect Handel
When you get total musicality from everyone involved, there’s nothing better
The Excursions of Mr Brouček, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - sensuousness, fire and comedy in perfect balance
Janáček’s wacky space-and-time-travel opera glows and grips in every bar
theatre
The Deep Blue Sea, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - Tamsin Greig honours Terence Rattigan
The 1952 classic lives to see another day in notably name-heavy revival
1536, Almeida Theatre review - fast and furious portrayal of women in Henry VIII's England
This wild, intelligent play is a tour de force till the doom-laden finale
The Comedy About Spies, Noel Coward Theatre review - 'Goes Wrong' team hit the spot again
More mayhem from the Mischief company
dance
The Forsythe Programme, English National Ballet review - brains, beauty and bravura
Once again the veteran choreographer and maverick William Forsythe raises ENB's game
Sad Book, Hackney Empire review - What we feel, what we show, and the many ways we deal with sadness
A book about navigating grief feeds into unusual and compelling dance theatre
comedy
Greg Davies, Brighton Dome review - chocolate bars and errant bumholes
Taskmaster's first tour in seven years is a joy
Books
Zsuzsanna Gahse: Mountainish review - seeking refuge
Notes on danger and dialogue in the shadow of the Swiss Alps
Patrick McGilligan: Woody Allen - A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham review - New York stories
Fair-minded Woody Allen biography covers all bases
visual arts
Do Ho Suh: Walk the House, Tate Modern review - memories are made of this
Home sweet home preserved as exquisite replicas
Ed Atkins, Tate Britain review - hiding behind computer generated doppelgängers
Emotions too raw to explore
latest comments
Excellent review, thank you! Such an important...
Pretty vile and unfair review - especially the...
And with their best song 'How Does It Feel?'. x
Thanks so much for this review of Shack at Union...
A heavier touch wouldn't have worked (though the...
"Vespetta has her way, of course, but in these...
Seen it last night in NYC, was a bit of a let...
I think the series portrays a parallel vision...