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Theartsdesk
Sunday, 01 December 2024
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...
Guy Oddy
Tuesday, 05 November 2024
More than once during their barnstorming performance this weekend, Bobby Vylan, vocalist with Bob Vylan proclaimed from the stage of Birmingham’s O2 Institute that “We are the...
David Nice
Monday, 04 November 2024
Earlier this year, Steven Isserlis curated a revelatory Sheffield Chamber Music Festival spotlighting Saint-Saëns, with plentiful Fauré towards the end. Now it’s the younger...
Hugh Barnes
Monday, 04 November 2024
In Alan Hollinghurst’s first novel, The Swimming Pool Library (1988), set during the summer of 1983, the young gay narrator, William Beckwith, lives in Holland Park. That same...
Robert Beale
Monday, 04 November 2024
The BBC Philharmonic were right to bill Garrick Ohlsson, soloist in Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1, as the main attraction in Saturday’s concert.The septuagenarian American is a...
Kieron Tyler
Monday, 04 November 2024
Springs begins cooking with “Spaced Out Invaders - Part I Quirks,” its fourth track. A spindly, rotating guitar figure interweaves with clattering percussion and pulsating...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 03 November 2024
After the chart success of his second album, June 1969’s Hot Buttered Soul, it was inevitable that any single had to...
Helen Hawkins
Saturday, 02 November 2024
It’s 1648 in Agra, and an excitable young guardsman has come up with an idea: a giant flying platform that he calls an “...
Jenny Gilbert
Saturday, 02 November 2024
In the foyer of the Linbury Theatre is an exhibition which gives a very upbeat account of the presence of black dancers in...
Irène Duval
Saturday, 02 November 2024
"I always enjoy seeing sunlight play on the rocks, the water, the trees and plains. What variety of effects, what brilliance...
Saskia Baron
Saturday, 02 November 2024
Anora has had so much hype since it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in May that it doesn’t really need another reviewer...
Rachel Halliburton
Saturday, 02 November 2024
Last time I saw the lovelorn Cyclops from Handel’s richly turbulent cantata, Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, he was in a warehouse...
Nick Hasted
Saturday, 02 November 2024
Chuck Prophet speaks the old language of rock’n’roll as if it’s bright and new. His long gone band Green On Red were R.E.M.’...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 01 November 2024
Director Thom Zimny has become the audio-visual Boswell to Bruce Springsteen’s Samuel Johnson, having made documentaries...
Graham Fuller
Friday, 01 November 2024
Blitz, set on a vast CGI canvas in September 1941, is an improbable boy’s adventure tale that depicts the misery and terror...
Aleks Sierz
Friday, 01 November 2024
Hanif Kureishi’s 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia begins like this: “My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and...
Demetrios Matheou
Friday, 01 November 2024
There’s much to note and commend about Small Things Like These, a sensitive, gorgeously shot and moving adaptation of...
Tim Cumming
Friday, 01 November 2024
Well, seems like only yesterday when I reviewed Willie Nelson’s last album, Borderline, an excellent set from the man’s...
Boyd Tonkin
Thursday, 31 October 2024
How we used to mock those stuck-in-the-mud opera houses that wheeled out the same moth-eaten production of some box-office...

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★★★ DR STRANGELOVE, NOEL COWARD THEATRE An evening of different parts

★★★★★ WILLIE NELSON - LAST LEAF ON THE TREE A late-career classic

RIP QUINCY JONES - 2O16 PROM A towering career is celebrated in style

★★★★ RIGOLETTO, ENO More tragic than gimmicky, this classic staging can still succeed

★★★★ ROAD DIARY: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND, DISNEY+ Thom Zimny's film reels in 50 years of New Jersey's most famous export

★★★★ SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE Less is more in stirring Irish drama

RIP JANEY GODLEY A fitting punchline for a contentious comedian

★★★ THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA, BARBICAN Farcical fun, but what about the issues?

disc of the day

Album: Møster! - Springs

Norwegian supergroup merges jazz with rock’s outer edges

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

Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Disney+ review - the Boss grows older defiantly

Thom Zimny's film reels in 50 years of New Jersey's most famous export

Industry, BBC One review - bold, addictive saga about corporate culture now

Third season of the tale of investment bankers reaches a satisfying climax

Rivals, Disney+ review - adultery, skulduggery and political incorrectness

Back to the Eighties with Jilly Cooper's tales of the rich and infamous

film

Anora review - life lesson for a kick-ass sex worker

Sean Baker's bracing Palme d'Or winner twists, turns, and makes a star of Mikey Madison

Blitz review - racism persists as bombs batter London

Steve McQueen's overwought World War Two boy's adventure film delivers its message

Small Things Like These review - less is more in stirring Irish drama

Cillian Murphy is exceptional as a man wrestling with his church and conscience

new music

Album: Møster! - Springs

Norwegian supergroup merges jazz with rock’s outer edges

Music Reissues Weekly: Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Singles

Plugging a gap in the story of the soul giant

classical

Fauré Centenary Concert 1, Wigmore Hall review - Isserlis and friends soar

Saint-Saëns is no also-ran in the opening event of a wondrous homage

Ohlsson, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - grace and power in Brahms

A time-travelling journey through the Austro-German Romantic tradition

'His ideal worlds embraced me with their light and love': violinist Irène Duval on the music of Fauré

On the centenary of the great French composer's death, a fine interpreter pays homage

opera

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Rigoletto, English National Opera review - another hit for Miller's Mob

More tragic than gimmicky, this classic staging can still succeed

theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - let's make three operas

Donizetti triumphs, with help from Bernstein, Rossini, two stars and director Orpha Phelan

theatre

Guards at the Taj, Orange Tree Theatre review - miniature marvel with rich resonances
Rajiv Joseph’s play pitting beauty against duty gets an impressive staging
The Buddha of Suburbia, Barbican Theatre review - farcical fun, but what about the issues?
Hanif Kureishi classic gets a compulsively comic makeover from Emma Rice
How To Survive Your Mother, King's Head Theatre review - mummy issues drive autobiographical dramedy
Lots of heartache, but a strange void where the heart of the play should be

dance

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Legacy, Linbury Theatre review - an exceptional display of black dance prowess

An all-too-fleeting celebration of black and brown ballet talent that demands a reprise

Encounters, Royal Ballet review - exciting mixed bill with a gem of a premiere

Pam Tanowitz's latest piece is a stunner that larkily subverts the rules

comedy

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Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Brighton Dome review - a foster carer's tale

Comic skilfully melds a personal story with sharp social commentary

Rose Matafeo, Arcola Theatre review - Starstruck star muses on love

Kiwi comic on dating, phone apps and Taylor Swift

Books

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Alan Hollinghurst: Our Evenings review - a gift that keeps on giving

Common themes are retuned with political edge in critique of Brexit, race, and sexuality

Jonathan Coe: The Proof of My Innocence review - a whodunnit with a difference

Political satire, social observation and literary artifice elevate this ostensibly 'cosy crime' caper

visual arts

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Vanessa Bell, MK Gallery review - diving into and out of abstraction

A variation of styles as the Bloomsbury artist breaks free from Victorian mores

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