theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Gary Naylor
Saturday, 28 May 2022
Playwrights return to classical myths for two main reasons – to shine a light on how we live today and because they're bloody good yarns.Marina Carr's re-telling of ...
Christina McMaster
Saturday, 28 May 2022
In 2020, during a gentle easing of lockdown restrictions, I was asked to play for the Culture Clinic sessions at Kings Place, a creative initiative where small groups of up to six...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 28 May 2022
Jugendstil: Music by Mahler and Schoenberg Beatrice Berrut (piano) (La Dolce Volta)“Is transcription betrayal?” asks pianist Beatrice Berrut in her booklet essay....
Kieron Tyler
Saturday, 28 May 2022
Crispy Moon is a musical kaleidoscope encompassing free-jazz skronk, Japanese folk melodies, Krautrock insistence, echoes of Recurring-era Spacemen 3, South African percussion...
Sebastian Scotney
Friday, 27 May 2022
For die-hard Juliette Binoche fans – don’t cross us, we get angry – Between Two Worlds is heaven. The French star hardly ever leaves the screen during the film’s 106 minutes. It...
Samson et Dalila, Royal Opera review - from austerity to excess, with visual rigour and aural beauty
David Nice
Friday, 27 May 2022
Words and situations are one-dimensional, but the music is chameleonic, if not profound, and crafted with a master’s hand. What to do about Saint-Saëns’s Biblical hokum? In...
Rachel Halliburton
Friday, 27 May 2022
Boris Johnson was of course not the first British leader to engineer a split with Europe for personal gain. This strikes you...
Markie Robson-Scott
Friday, 27 May 2022
In Maltese-American Alex Camilleri’s debut feature, it’s a case of follow the swordfish. This terrifically atmospheric,...
Rojbîn Arjen Yigit
Friday, 27 May 2022
In this best-selling Korean novella, recently translated into English by Jamie Chang, Kim Hye-jin offers us the perspective...
Nick Hasted
Friday, 27 May 2022
Nouvelle Vague directors have grown to seem more diverse than bonded, a golden generation linked by extreme...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 26 May 2022
With Jurassic World: Dominion due in June, which will mark the end of the “Jurassic” movie franchise, here’s Apple TV’s...
Joe Muggs
Thursday, 26 May 2022
This album starts and ends so brilliantly. It kicks off with a salvo of three tracks that remind you exactly why Def Leppard...
Adam Sweeting
Wednesday, 25 May 2022
The challenge for the makers of Das Boot is to keep finding new ways to move the show forwards and outwards without losing...
Marianka Swain
Wednesday, 25 May 2022
The 2001 Reese Witherspoon-starring film Legally Blonde, upon which Heather Hach, Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin’s peppy...
Sebastian Scotney
Wednesday, 25 May 2022
Wigmore Soloists is such a good idea, and still at an early stage of its development. The group brings together top players...
Laura De Lisle
Wednesday, 25 May 2022
When Bliss, a new play adapted from an Andrei Platonov short story by Fraser Grace, made its debut in Russia in early 2020,...
Gavin Dixon
Wednesday, 25 May 2022
Dresden is filled with music at this time of year. The Dresden Music Festival runs through May and early June, with concerts...
Thomas H Green
Wednesday, 25 May 2022
While Britpop was a retrogressive media construct, Oasis were a genuine socio-musical phenomenon (albeit also retrogressive...
Miranda Heggie
Tuesday, 24 May 2022
After two years of Covid-affected performances – even though there was a full season last year – Glyndebourne's annual...
disc of the day
Album: Yama Warashi - Crispy Moon
Our nearest celestial neighbour inspires former Zun Zun Egui mainstay
tv
Prehistoric Planet, Apple TV+ review - David Attenborough presents life on earth, 66 million years ago
Technology brings dinosaurs to life in microscopic detail
Das Boot, Series 3, Sky Atlantic review - submarine warfare finds new horizons
Look out U-boats, Commander Swinburne is coming for you
The Essex Serpent, Apple TV+ review - tradition and superstition versus the march of progress
The battle of ideas comes to the East Coast in exquisitely shot treatment of Sarah Perry's novel
film
Between Two Worlds review - Juliette Binoche, maid in France
Juliette Binoche determinedly takes on the gig economy
Luzzu review - a Maltese fisherman struggles with modernity
Bureaucracy and the boat: real-life fishermen excel in this debut feature
Blu-ray: Twisting the Knife - Four Films by Claude Chabrol
Miasmic guilt as a French master skewers the bourgeoisie
new music
Album: Yama Warashi - Crispy Moon
Our nearest celestial neighbour inspires former Zun Zun Egui mainstay
Album: Def Leppard - Diamond Star Halos
Sheffield's glam-metal master craftsmen can still deliver... mostly
Album: Liam Gallagher - C'Mon You Know
Lots of big-sounding sonic detail but a lack of great songs on the latest from Liam
classical
First Person: Christina McMaster - seeking musical cures for modern malaise
Lying down and listening; a pianist and healer contemplates her work
Classical CDs: Forests, mountains, cowbells and cushions
Contrasting landscapes, vibrant chamber music and revolutionary oboe repertoire
Wigmore Soloists, Wigmore Hall review - superb Janáček
A new group starting to make its stylish and confident mark
opera
Samson et Dalila, Royal Opera review - from austerity to excess, with visual rigour and aural beauty
Peerless mezzo and conductor, promising tenor at the heart of this hard-to-stage hybrid
Le nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne review - fabulous singing and a classy production
Superb music making against the backdrop of a sumptuous Sevillian set
The Wreckers, Glyndebourne review - no masterpiece, but vividly sung and played
Blowsy, intriguing grand opera by Ethel Smyth has full theatrical impact
theatre
Girl on an Altar, Kiln Theatre review - machismo, murder and motherhood in mesmerising myth
Marina Carr's angry, poetic take on Clytemnestra's story is delivered in all its gory glory
Henry VIII, Shakespeare's Globe review - unashamedly vulgar take on our last split with Europe
A ten-foot golden phallus is launched from the musicians’ gallery
Legally Blonde, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - a joyous Gen-Z musical makeover
Lucy Moss puts the 'camp' into campus with her riotous, inclusive revival
dance
Classical CDs: Toyshops, begging gods and a good year for Austrian music
Classical piano music, French symphonies and a big box of ballets
Dance for Ukraine, London Coliseum, online review - a gala to remember
Swiftly-assembled charity effort demonstrates dancers' engagement with the world
The Weathering/Solo Echo/DGV, Royal Ballet review - the dancer as chameleon
Strong one-act works by Kyle Abraham and Crystal Pite show the dancers at their adaptive best
comedy
Andy Zaltzman, Soho Theatre review - satire on the hoof
Setting the world to rights, one joke at a time
Stratagem With Alan Partridge, touring review - he's back as a lifestyle guru
Steve Coogan's creation doesn't quite hit the spot
Books
Kim Hye-jin: Concerning My Daughter review - room for complication
A mother’s enveloping love is tested against her desire for conformity
Alyn Shipton: On Jazz - A Personal Journey - digging jazz deeply and musically
Alyn Shipton is a meticulous historian
Joanna Walsh: Girl Online - A User Manual review - how 'beatifoul' it is to be online
Into the glitchy, liminal space of the woman-cum-girl
visual arts
Ming Smith: A Dream Deferred, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery review - snapping the Blues
Previously unseen "overpainted photographs" take pride of place
latest comments
The first series was great. Eve Myles is a great...
What a sad old man. Sure the music is great, but...
He does want us to take it THAT seriously, and...
I came from Vancouver, BC, Canada to see this...
Errr ...... There's quite a lot of humour...
I beg to differ. Hey, I don't care for EVERY Van...
Rather a harsh review. I attended the first night...
What's happened to him? He's exercising his...