theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Guy Oddy
Wednesday, 11 September 2024
It has to be hoped that Stuart Staples’ songs for Tindersticks aren’t a reflection of his actual life experiences. No-one really deserves that much rejection.For over 30 years,...
Jenny Gilbert
Tuesday, 10 September 2024
The Mad Hatter gets it about right when he tells Alice: “You’re entirely bonkers… but all the best people are.” Kate Prince takes this line and runs with it in her riotous but...
Alexandra Coghlan
Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Later this autumn Richard Eyre’s La Traviata celebrates its 30th birthday. Not bad going for the director’s first ever foray into opera – a genre he admitted holding an “...
Harry Thorfinn-George
Tuesday, 10 September 2024
A woman sits at her computer. She copy-pastes an address into a search engine. She goes to street view. She zooms in. Click. Opens a new tab. Click. Searches a name. There are no...
Helen Hawkins
Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Like the BBC’s documentary series The Yorkshire Ripper Files before it, the French six-part drama Sambre on BBC Four is more than a grim rerun of an extended crime spree. On trial...
James Saynor
Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Sometimes love never dies and the dead never rot. A lot of water has flowed down the River Styx since Tim Burton’s first Beetlejuice film in 1988, but the bones of the original...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Once regarded as highly as Kurosawa and Ozu, Japanese director Mikio Naruse’s star has fallen in recent decades, with few of...
Justine Elias
Monday, 09 September 2024
Blame the high cost of city housing, or killer smog. What else can explain a bright young couple’s move from 1970s Leeds to...
Alexandra Dariescu
Monday, 09 September 2024
This year, I am delighted to be supporting the Alexandra Dariescu Award at the Leeds International Piano Competition for an...
David Nice
Monday, 09 September 2024
The Proms’ Indian summer of big visiting orchestras is over – and what a parade it’s been – but renewal hit on the last...
Kieron Tyler
Monday, 09 September 2024
Although it takes seconds to discern that Juniore are French, a core inspiration appears to be the echoing surf-pop...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 08 September 2024
After the March 1969 UK release of the “Return of Django” single, prospective performers of the song could buy it...
David Nice
Saturday, 07 September 2024
Mahler’s Sixth is one of those apocalyptic megaliths that shouldn’t be approached too often by audiences or conductors. It’s...
Jenny Gilbert
Saturday, 07 September 2024
It’s exactly a year since Ballet Nights, the self-styled taster platform for dance, started offering chirpily compered...
David Nice
Saturday, 07 September 2024
The ancient Greeks would probably have liked a lot about Charlie Covell‘s manipulation of mythic material. After all,...
Guy Oddy
Saturday, 07 September 2024
The Allergies kicked off their Freak the Speaker tour in Birmingham this week. However, the album that they were promoting...
Gary Naylor
Saturday, 07 September 2024
One of the Finborough Theatre’s Artistic Director, Neil McPherson’s, gifts is an uncanny ability to find long-forgotten...
Joe Muggs
Saturday, 07 September 2024
This album only has one serious flaw: LL COOL J didn’t open it with “OK you can call it a comeback”. Sorry, cheap joke (if...
Boyd Tonkin
Friday, 06 September 2024
Hot on the glittering heels of the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko, Sir Simon Rattle brought another stellar German...
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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
Sambre: Anatomy of a Crime, BBC Four review - satisfying novelistic retelling of a French true crime saga
Compelling story of a rapist who hid in plain sight for 30 years
Kaos, Netflix review - playing fast and profuse with the Greek myths
A rainbow of acting talent, but too many ideas thrown into the labyrinth
Slow Horses, Season 4, Apple TV+ review - Gary Oldman returns as the 'gross and inappropriate' Jackson Lamb
Latest instalment of the Slough House saga exerts a vice-like grip
film
Red Rooms review - the darkest of webs
Writer-director Pascal Plante has a cult hit on his hands with this skilful cyber-thriller
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice review - a lively resurrection
Tim Burton gets the old gang back from the dead
new music
Album: Juniore - Trois, Deux, Un
Parisian trio showcase an elegant if deliberate retro-futurist garage-pop
Music Reissues Weekly: Lee 'Scratch' Perry and Friends - People Funny Boy: The Upsetter Singles 1968-1969
Meticulous investigation of the early self-determined years of the eminent sonic architect
classical
First Person: Alexandra Dariescu on highlighting women at the Leeds International Piano Competition
A distinguished pianist fights for more balanced international programming
Proms 63-65, Choral Day review - from Harris to Handel/Mozart via Alabama, with love
British and American beauties crowned by a cornucopial 'Messiah'
Prom 62, Mahler's Sixth Symphony, Bavarian RSO, Rattle review - sound over momentum
Near-perfect playing, but something missing in the overall drama
opera
La traviata, Royal Opera review - a charismatic soprano in a serviceable revival
Richard Eyre's classic production looks great but lacks fizz
Prom 52, Carmen, Glyndebourne Festival review - fine-tuning a masterpiece
No loss of vivid focus as the Albert Hall becomes Bar Lillas Pastia
Verdi's Requiem / Capriccio, Edinburgh International Festival 2024 review - words, music, judgement
Philharmonia Orchestra closes the festival with grandeur and intimacy
theatre
The Silver Cord, Finborough Theatre review - Sophie Ward is compellingly repellent
Beautifully staged and acted revival of Sidney Howard’s century-old black comedy
Art, Theatre Royal Bath review - Yasmina Reza's smash hit back on tour 30 years after Paris premiere
Male friendships buckle as egos clash, with a resonance for today's culture wars
The Real Thing, Old Vic review - Stoppard classic keeps on giving
James McArdle is immense as Stoppard’s true romantic
dance
The Mad Hatter's Tea Party, ZooNation, Linbury Theatre review - a joyous celebration of differentness
Kate Prince's hip hop take on Lewis Carroll is energetic, charming and moving by turns
Ballet Nights #006, Cadogan Hall review - a mixed bag of excellence
Gala enterprise, 12 months on, will be a stayer if it keeps up this level of excitement
theartsdesk Q&A: Nina Ananiashvili, founder of the State Ballet of Georgia
Bolshoi superstar who made her name in London returns with a new generation
comedy
Adam Sandler, Netflix Special - songs, silliness and deconstructing stand-up
The comic and director Josh Sadie have fun with the form
Blu-ray: Laurel and Hardy - The Silent Years
Always watchable, occasionally hysterical collection of silent shorts
Books
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
Paul Alexander: Bitter Crop - The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year review - setting the record straight
Busting myths in this sensitive appraisal of a jazz legend
visual arts
Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent, Whitechapel Gallery review - photomontages sizzling with rage
Fifty years of political protest by a master craftsman
Dominique White: Deadweight, Whitechapel Gallery review - sculptures that seem freighted with history
Dunked in the sea to give them a patina of age, sculptures that feel timeless
latest comments
I agree with every word, Simon. This and the...
I couldn't agree more with the previous comment....
Still says Wokomo- not Wokoma.
I think I must have been at a different concert!...
Racist and misogynist for sure, but Bei Mannern,...
I was spellbound by the Bach and have been...
Ah, so it was my idol among oboists (though I...
I hope there were some in the audience who'd...