theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Katherine Waters
Saturday, 22 September 2018
It’s the nature of satire to reflect what it mocks, so as you’d expect from a British Museum exhibition curated by Ian Hislop, I object is a curiously establishment take on...
Tom Birchenough
Saturday, 22 September 2018
The end-of-season contemporary writing slot at the Globe must be a proposal as full of promise for playwrights as it is perhaps intimidating. There’s the sheer scale of the space...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 22 September 2018
Bernstein: Wonderful Town Danielle de Niese, Alysha Umphress, Nathan Gunn, London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (LSO Live)Wonderful Town’s one problem is that it isn't...
Jasper Rees
Saturday, 22 September 2018
Domnhall Gleeson needs to watch it. In Goodbye Christopher Robin he played AA Milne, the creator of Pooh and co. To achieve the correct level of period English PTSD, it was as if...
Barney Harsent
Saturday, 22 September 2018
Mudhoney are a constant in a changing world. When they first burst into our consciousness 30 years ago, few would have put their mortgage on the band’s longevity. They were an...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 21 September 2018
Witches, vampires and magicke of all descriptions continue to be big box office, so Sky 1’s new dramatisation of the first book of Deborah Harkness’s All Souls Trilogy should be...
Mark Kidel
Friday, 21 September 2018
Henry V is a play shot through with martial energy and the terrible chaos of war. The almost overpowering violence and...
Veronica Lee
Friday, 21 September 2018
Katherine Ryan was making her West End debut – a big moment in any comic’s career – but she made her entrance on stage at...
Graham Rickson
Friday, 21 September 2018
Animation fans have rarely had it so good, though it’s nothing short of criminal that the mean-spirited, infantile Peter...
Jessica Duchen
Thursday, 20 September 2018
The LSO and Sir Simon Rattle have been launching their new season with a mini-festival, if not so-called, mixing and...
Tom Birchenough
Thursday, 20 September 2018
On the eve of her tenth decade, the marvellous Agnès Varda embarked on the enchanted journey that we see in Faces Places....
James Graham
Thursday, 20 September 2018
Thank you. It’s an honour to have been asked to speak here today. Although looking at the h100 List this year, I’ve no idea...
Rachel Halliburton
Thursday, 20 September 2018
As the Syrian conflict enters its final convulsions, renewing memories of how the Sykes-Picot agreement – between an...
Marianka Swain
Thursday, 20 September 2018
This London premiere of Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s 2010 musical (based on Daniel Waters’ oh-so-Eighties cult...
Joe Muggs
Thursday, 20 September 2018
Knowing a deceased artist's archives are available for re-release is a double-edged sword. Will there be a shoddy flood of...
Demetrios Matheou
Wednesday, 19 September 2018
At a time when the issue over the scarcity of opportunities for female filmmakers is finally winning traction, it’s...
Ellie Porter
Wednesday, 19 September 2018
“This, quite possibly, could be a really good night,” declared David Crosby. He’s a couple of songs into this show, one of...
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tv
A Discovery of Witches, episode 2, Sky 1 review - when the sorceress met the vampire
Supernatural chills and thrills in TV version of the 'All Souls Trilogy'
James Graham: 'the country of Shakespeare no longer recognises arts as a core subject'
Full transcript of the playwright's passionate speech about the importance of the arts at the Hospital Club's h100 Awards
Strangers, episode 2, ITV review - conspiracy theories multiply
Hong Kong locations may be the real stars of this tortuous thriller
film
The Little Stranger review - the wrong sort of chills
Sarah Waters' haunted-house yarn from the maker of Room will leave you cold
Faces Places review - Agnès Varda's enchanted journey
With photographer JR, the great French documentarist journeys through her homeland
new music
CD: Prince - Piano and a Microphone 1983
Is this a glimmer of hope that treatment of the Paisley Park archives is going to be respectful?
David Crosby & Friends, Shepherd’s Bush Empire, review - still spine-tingling at 77
The singer-songwriter rifles through a long back catalogue from the Byrds through CSN to his new output
classical
Classical CDs Weekly: Bernstein, Rachmaninov, Jeffrey Roden
A broadway musical, Russian symphonies exhumed from the vaults and a quiet American radical
Jansen, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - nature's splendours and a fond farewell
Richly imaginative 20th-century music sees out a long-serving LSO violinist in style
Ian Bostridge, Thomas Adès, Wigmore Hall review - haunting, brutal Schubert
A Winterreise of psychological intensity, but too often taken to ghoulish extremes
opera
Isouard's Cendrillon, Bampton Classical Opera review - stepsisters shine in fairy-tale bagatelle
Maltese-French composer's Cinders opera is mostly routine, but performed with esprit
Parsifal, Saffron Opera Group review - drama and focus
Amateur company continues its run of dramatically compelling Wagner
War and Peace, Welsh National Opera review - an Operation Barbarossa that comes off
Not quite a masterpiece but a great aural and visual spectacle
theatre
Eyam, Shakespeare's Globe review - plague drama, dark and loose
Back to the 17th century: the village that cut itself off to die
Henry V, Tobacco Factory Theatres, Bristol review - the pity of war
A strikingly contemporary take on a humanity's addiction to conflict
James Graham: 'the country of Shakespeare no longer recognises arts as a core subject'
Full transcript of the playwright's passionate speech about the importance of the arts at the Hospital Club's h100 Awards
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
Enter theartsdesk / h Club Young Influencer of the Year award
In association with The Hospital Club's h.Club100 Awards, we're looking for the best cultural writers, bloggers and vloggers
comedy
Katherine Ryan, Garrick Theatre review - feminism with extra sass
A laugh-heavy hour from the Canadian
The League of Gentlemen Live Again!, Sunderland Empire review - going local for local people
Sketch group back on the road for the first time since 2005
Edinburgh Fringe 2018: Rose Matafeo review
Edinburgh Comedy Award winner has a wonderfully daft show
gaming
Marvel's Spider-Man review - fandom fodder at its finest
Swinging in the city with the arachnid avenger
h Club 100 Awards: Video games - pioneers with heart and soul
High tech meets high calibre in this year’s list of gaming’s brightest sparks
Jurassic World Evolution review - manage a dinosaur theme park and make a killing
A comprehensive management sim where you feed the exhibits, the punters and your bank balance
visual arts
I object, British Museum review - censorship, accidental?
Exhibition on dissidence and subversion doesn't allow objects to speak for themselves
h 100 Awards: Art, Design and Craft - making art public
Showcasing the strength of British visual culture, and the people bringing it to public attention