theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 13 October 2024
In 2022, Spritualized’s Jason Pierce described his musical goal as "trying to find somewhere between Arvo Pärt and The Stooges.” Amongst the most arresting and explicitly Pärt-...
David Nice
Saturday, 12 October 2024
At first, you wonder if the peculiar voice of Henry James’s maybe unreliable narrator can be preserved in this production. Surely the outcome is known if we first meet the...
Adam Sweeting
Saturday, 12 October 2024
ConclaveDirector Edward Berger won an Oscar for his last feature, All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), but here he concerns himself with the more intimate and claustrophobic...
Sarah Kent
Saturday, 12 October 2024
“The ocean is our home… Even in my next life I will dive again,” says Geum Ok, one of a band of female divers from Jeju, a volcanic island 60 miles south of the Korean peninsular....
David Nice
Saturday, 12 October 2024
Most of us have been there: an impasse in a marriage, a bereavement in a dysfunctional family. Leonard Bernstein certainly had when he composed Trouble in Tahiti in 1952, basing...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 12 October 2024
Georges Prêtre plays Francis Poulenc (Erato)Georges Prêtre and Francis Poulenc’s working relationship began in 1959 when Prêtre conducted the first staging of La Voix...
Tim Cumming
Saturday, 12 October 2024
Sweet Release opens up a landscape of redemption by riding the rails of a classic blues, the title track talking...
Lindsey Ferrentino
Friday, 11 October 2024
I turn 36 this year, while living in London and rehearsing my new play The Fear of 13 at the Donmar Warehouse. The cast...
Hugh Barnes
Friday, 11 October 2024
Unlike the controversial Netflix show Baby Reindeer, which challenges many of the same attitudes towards sexual harassment,...
Robert Beale
Friday, 11 October 2024
Of all the inventive and enterprising things Manchester Collective do, it’s most often been the playing of a string ensemble...
Justine Elias
Friday, 11 October 2024
Before Alice Lowe wrote her first short film scripts, she was, despite success in television and theater, “terrified” of...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 11 October 2024
Merchant bankers then eh? It’s not a slang term of abuse for nothing, as the middlemen collecting the crumbs off the cake (...
Ismene Brown
Friday, 11 October 2024
Of all the ingenues in all the world of golden TV sitcom, Felicity Kendal was the most innocent, the most wicked, the most...
Sebastian Scotney
Friday, 11 October 2024
Immanuel Wilkins’s third Blue Note Album – Blues Blood – has a big concept behind it. According to the album...
Aleks Sierz
Thursday, 10 October 2024
Air travel is bad for us. Yes, yes, I know we need planes to take us long distances, but look at the downside: not only the...
Tim Etchells
Thursday, 10 October 2024
Forced Entertainment is a theatre company based in Sheffield, touring original performances around the world. The core group...
Sarah Kent
Thursday, 10 October 2024
Brazilian artist Lygia Clark is best known for taking her abstract sculptures off the pedestal and inviting people to...
Helen Hawkins
Thursday, 10 October 2024
The writer-director Josh Azouz and actor-director Kathryn Hunter have collaborated on a piece exploring the ethics of being...
Markie Robson-Scott
Thursday, 10 October 2024
“I like laws and rules,” Steph (Jeany Spark), a jaded primary school teacher, tells a pet-shop employee – she’s adopting a...
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disc of the day
Album: Justin Adams & Mauro Durante - Sweet Release
The duo’s second set cooks on a recipe of Italian Pizzica, rock, blues and Fairuz
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
Ludwig, BBC One review - entertaining spin on the brainy detective formula
David Mitchell is a perfect fit for this super-sleuth
The Hardacres, Channel 5 review - a fishy tale of upward mobility
Will everyday saga of Yorkshire folk strike a popular note?
Joan, ITV1 review - the roller-coaster career of a 1980s jewel thief
Brilliant performance by Sophie Turner as 'The Godmother'
film
The Last of the Sea Women review - a moving tale of feisty traditional divers
Eye-opening Korean doc about intrepid harvesters of the deep
Timestalker review – she's lost control again
Alice Lowe directs herself as a woman pursuing the wrong dude, century after century
theartsdesk Q&A: Alice Lowe on 'Timestalker' and what women rue through the ages
The writer, director, and star inserts herself into the history of love
new music
Album: Justin Adams & Mauro Durante - Sweet Release
The duo’s second set cooks on a recipe of Italian Pizzica, rock, blues and Fairuz
classical
Classical CDs: Elephants, clocks and palindromes
A lovable French composer boxed up, plus discs of choral and chamber music
Kanga, Manchester Collective, Singh, RNCM Manchester review - string ensemble playing at its most rewarding
New classics introduced and a world premiere with a dark story
Hardenberger, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - splendour and a trumpeter's voluntary
Individuality and discipline in Strauss, Stravinsky, Haydn… and more
opera
The Turn of the Screw, English National Opera review - Jamesian ambiguities chillingly preserved
Pity and terror in Ailish Tynan’s anguished Governess and Isabella Bywater’s production
Trouble in Tahiti/A Quiet Place, Linbury Theatre review - top cast plays unhappy families
Mini-masterpiece and splashy sequel carried off with as much conviction as they can take
Blond Eckbert, English Touring Opera review - dark deeds afoot in the woods
Judith Weir’s chamber opera explores Freudian themes through a modern lens
theatre
First Person: Lindsey Ferrentino on the play that has led Adrien Brody to the London stage
The American dramatist on bringing 'The Fear of 13', and its Oscar-winning lead, to the Donmar
The Lehman Trilogy, Gillian Lynne Theatre review - three brothers, two crashes, one American Dream
Sensational stagecraft elevates familiar tale of immigrant success in the USA
Filumena, Theatre Royal Windsor review - Mozartian marriage comedy with pasta sauce
Dazzling Felicity Kendal conquers time in a tour de force of comedic playing
dance
National Ballet of Canada, Sadler's Wells review - see this, and know what dance can do
Yet again, Crystal Pite proves herself a ferocious creative force, alongside fellow Canadian exports James Kudelka and Emma Portner
Nobodaddy, Teaċ Daṁsa, Dublin Theatre Festival review - supernatural song and dance odyssey
Michael Keegan-Dolan’s genius guides us through death, separation and loss
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Royal Ballet review - big, bold and ultimately brash
It may be box-office gold, but Christopher Wheeldon's adaptation fails to find a beating heart down the rabbit hole
comedy
Ellen DeGeneres, Netflix Special review - no mea culpa and few jokes
Former chatshow host’s bizarre take on cancellation
Joe Rogan, Netflix Special review - US podcaster leaves the controversy - and the jokes - at home
Nothing edgy about this hour
Zoë Coombs Marr, Soho Theatre review - stock checks and spreadsheets
Australian comic's autobiographical show
Books
Stevie Smith: Not Waving But Drowning review - riding the wave
This slim and stylish new edition can't quite dispel some lurking doubts
Ellen McWilliams: Resting Places - On Wounds, War and the Irish Revolution review - finding art in the inarticulable
A violent history finds a home in this impressionistic blend of literary criticism and memoir
Claire Messud: This Strange Eventful History review - home is where the heart was
A brutally honest and epic narrative follows a family doomed to wander the earth
visual arts
Lygia Clark: The I and the You, Sonia Boyce: An Awkward Relation, Whitechapel Gallery review - breaking boundaries
Two artists, 50 years apart, invite audience participation
Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit, Tate Modern review - adolescent angst indefinitely extended
The artist who refused to grow up
Monet and London, Courtauld Gallery review - utterly sublime smog
Never has pollution looked so compellingly beautiful
latest comments
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