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Theartsdesk
Wednesday, 01 October 2025
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...
Demetrios Matheou
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
With qualifying about to begin for the soccer World Cup, and England sporting a brand new manager, it’s fitting that James Graham’s Olivier-winning celebration of the previous...
Saskia Baron
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
I so wanted to like Flow. I’d heard good things from usually reliable critic friends who’d seen it already and told me it had enchanted them and their pets.There’s no dialogue and...
Guy Oddy
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Going by the sounds of her new album, it wouldn’t unreasonable to assume that Greentea Peng enjoys sucking on a spliff every once in a while. Tell Dem It’s Sunny is certainly Gold...
Adam Sweeting
Tuesday, 18 March 2025
A dictionary definition of adolescence is “the transitional phase of growth and development between childhood and adulthood”, but in this four-part drama it looks more like a...
Markie Robson-Scott
Monday, 17 March 2025
Writer Ariel (Ayo Edebiri; The Bear) has worked at a music magazine for three years but in spite of coming up with great ideas, she never gets assigned stories.“You’re middle as...
Pamela Jahn
Monday, 17 March 2025
Radhika Apte has been acclaimed for her ebullient performance as a reluctant bride in Sister Midnight since director Karan...
David Nice
Monday, 17 March 2025
Few symphonies lasting over an hour hold the attention (Mahler’s can; even Messiaen’s Turangalîla feels two movements too...
Stephen Walsh
Sunday, 16 March 2025
There’s a lot to be said for the planning that clearly went into this concert by the Cardiff-based new music ensemble,...
Alexandra Coghlan
Sunday, 16 March 2025
Memorably described by Gramophone magazine as the “new kids on the classical block…with lavish pocket money”, Apple’s London...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 16 March 2025
After scoring a hit in 1966 with the distinctive folk-pop of her jazz-inclined debut single "Walkin' my Cat Named Dog," US...
Robert Beale
Saturday, 15 March 2025
Manchester Collective, now very much a part of the establishment world of new music, are still enlarging their territory....
Jon Turney
Saturday, 15 March 2025
Henry Gee’s previous book, A Brief History of Life on Earth, made an interestingly downbeat read for a title that won the UK...
John Carvill
Saturday, 15 March 2025
Director Haroula Rose’s gentle, good-hearted new comedy-drama All Happy Families takes its title from the famous...
Kieron Tyler
Saturday, 15 March 2025
“Sitting on a sofa, cigarettes and beer, ten years disappear…agreeing to agree, just to get along.” By going into the...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 14 March 2025
Michael Fassbender recently starred in Paramount+’s rather laborious spy drama The Agency, but here he finds himself at the...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 14 March 2025
Can Francesca Moody do it again? Fleabag’s producer has brought Weather Girl to London, after a successful run at last year’...
Rachel Halliburton
Friday, 14 March 2025
Before there was Barbie: The Movie, before there was Legally Blonde, there was Clueless, the Valley Girl movie that measured...
Joe Muggs
Friday, 14 March 2025
America – the pro-wrestling-ass nation, the ultimate society of the spectacle – famously likes things big, and modern...
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disc of the day
Album: Greentea Peng - Tell Dem It's Sunny
South Londoner’s smoky sophomore album is loaded with dope tunes
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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
Adolescence, Netflix review - Stephen Graham battles the phantom menace of the internet
How antisocial networks lead to real-life tragedy
Drive to Survive, Season 7, Netflix review - speed, scandal and skulduggery in the pitlane
The F1 documentary series is back on the pace
A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, ITV1 review - powerful dramatisation of the 1955 case that shocked the public
Lucy Boynton excels as the last woman to be executed in Britain
film
Flow review - come the apocalypse, cue the animals
The Oscar-winning animated creature feature somehow doesn't work
Opus review - the press trip from hell, starring John Malkovich and Ayo Edebiri
Mark Anthony Green directs a confusing commentary on celebrity culture
theartsdesk Q&A: Indian star Radhika Apte on 'Sister Midnight'
The actor on her breakout screen performance capturing the frantic pulse of Mumbai, and living and working between London and India
new music
Album: Greentea Peng - Tell Dem It's Sunny
South Londoner’s smoky sophomore album is loaded with dope tunes
Music Reissues Weekly: Norma Tanega - I Don't Think It Will Hurt If You Smile
Cult album from 1971 which deserves its status as a lost classic
Album: The Loft - Everything Changes, Everything Stays The Same
Belated debut album from the early Creation Records mainstays
classical
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Marsalis, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - sounds above substance
Phenomenal playing and conducting just about hold focus through an overlong symphony
Uproar, Rafferty, Royal Welsh College, Cardiff review - colourful new inventions inspired by Ligeti
Unfussy professionalism from Wales-based new music ensemble
Attacca Quartet, Kings Place review - bridging the centuries in sound
Grammy-winning quartet bring more American punch than Gallic je-ne-sais-quoi to Ravel
opera
Mansfield Park, Guildhall School review - fun when frothy, chugging in romantic entanglements
Jonathan Dove’s strip-cartoon Jane Austen works well as a showcase for students
Uprising, Glyndebourne review - didactic community opera superbly performed
Jonathan Dove and April De Angelis go for the obvious, but this is still a rewarding project
theatre
Dear England, National Theatre review - extra time for stirring soccer classic
James Graham adds a neat coda to his ode to decency in sport
Weather Girl, Soho Theatre review - the apocalypse as surreal black comedy
A Californian weather girl copes with fires inside and outside her head
Clueless: The Musical, Trafalgar Studios review - a perfectly manicured update
KT Tunstall's new score brings bite and momentum to a high octane evening
dance
Light of Passage, Royal Ballet review - Crystal Pite’s cosmic triptych powers back
Total music theatre takes us from the hell of exile to separation at heaven’s gates
Vollmond, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris Charmatz, Sadler's Wells review - clunkily-named company shows its lighter side
A new generation of dancers brings zest, humour and playfulness to late Bausch
comedy
Harry Hill, Wilton's Music Hall review - madcap comic on terrific form
Utterly daft mix of new material and favourite old characters
Books
Henry Gee: The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Why Our Species is on the Edge of Extinction review - survival instincts
A science writer looks to the stars for a way to dodge our impending doom
Jonathan Buckley: One Boat review - a shore thing
Buckley’s 13th novel is a powerful reflection on intimacy and grief
visual arts
Echoes: Stone Circles, Community and Heritage, Stonehenge Visitor Centre review - young photographers explore ancient resonances
The ancient monument opens its first exhibition of new photography
Hylozoic/Desires: Salt Cosmologies, Somerset House and The Hedge of Halomancy, Tate Britain review - the power of white powder
A strong message diluted by space and time
latest comments
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Thanks - I only found this out today. Clearly the...