theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Thomas H Green
Thursday, 30 November 2023
A deathless trend in pop is taking great songs, slowing them down, doing orchestral versions, or rendering them raw acoustic. This, ostensibly, reveals their genius and/or brings...
David Nice
Wednesday, 29 November 2023
This is the show that launched a thousand puns, mostly ancient-Greek-oriented, and just as many corny rhymes, all delivered with high energy and greeted with joyful groans. To say...
Bernard Hughes
Wednesday, 29 November 2023
Frank Bridge’s Phantasie Piano Quartet was astutely described by his student Benjamin Britten as “Brahms tempered with Fauré”, so it made a lot of sense to programme it alongside...
Graham Fuller
Wednesday, 29 November 2023
Some 28 years in gestation, Peter Gabriel’s eighth studio album of wholly original songs – his first since 2002’s Up – will delight his fans and top the charts. Gabriel’s best...
Matt Wolf
Tuesday, 28 November 2023
Familiarity has bred something quite fantastic with the Old Vic Christmas Carol, which is back for a seventh season and merits ringing all available bells - those and a lost love...
Adam Sweeting
Tuesday, 28 November 2023
It was as long ago as January last year that the prolific Williams brothers, Jack and Harry, delivered their absorbing Australian Outback thriller The Tourist. Hitherto, product...
Robert Beale
Tuesday, 28 November 2023
John Storgårds found himself literally facing both ways for the third item on the BBC Philharmonic’s programme on Saturday:...
Mark Kidel
Tuesday, 28 November 2023
The vast and various spaces of Frank Gehry’s monumental Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris suit the needs of the thrilling...
Graham Fuller
Tuesday, 28 November 2023
British anti-war films inspired by “the war that” failed “to end all wars” include Oh! What a Lovely War, The Return of the...
Matt Wolf
Monday, 27 November 2023
The National Theatre these days seems to be going from hit-to-hit, with transfers aplenty and full houses at home. And there...
David Nice
Monday, 27 November 2023
Singular in its variousness, this is a three-act ballet that need some unpicking. No wonder those hooked on first...
Jonathan Geddes
Monday, 27 November 2023
There was a moment towards the end of this exuberant evening when Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson compared the show to a pantomime...
Christopher Lambton
Monday, 27 November 2023
It is not every day that a new choral work by a living composer can confidently be labelled a masterpiece. Yet this is what...
Gary Naylor
Monday, 27 November 2023
In Annus Mirabilis, Philip Larkin wrote,"So life was never better than In nineteen sixty-three (Though just too...
David Nice
Monday, 27 November 2023
Sometimes all the stars align in musical performance. There’s no soprano more alive to the expression of musical joy and...
Kieron Tyler
Monday, 27 November 2023
After leaving Midlake while recording their fourth album, Tim Smith said he was pursuing music under the name Harp. That was...
India Lewis
Sunday, 26 November 2023
Coming at the end of a long year’s gigging, This Is The Kit’s performance at the Barbican on Saturday night was an excellent...
Rachel Halliburton
Sunday, 26 November 2023
The Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottír found her work put under a strangely unforgiving lens when it was featured in...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 26 November 2023
"Both of us have always enjoyed listening to dance music, and we wanted to interpret disco in our own way. We wanted to make...
disc of the day
Album: Trevor Horn - Echoes: Ancient & Modern
Horn's second album of downtempo cover versions runs the gamut from the bland to the excruciating
tv
Boat Story, BBC One review - once upon a time in Yorkshire
New Williams brothers thriller is violent, far-fetched and extremely watchable
The Crown, Season 6, Netflix review - royal epic in a vain search for authenticity
It looks like news photos coming to life, but the dialogue and concept still jar
Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story, Disney+ review - classic underdog tale of the little team that could
Inside story of Jenson Button's amazing championship year
film
Blu-ray: King and Country
The class war rears its ugly head on the Western Front in Joseph Losey's bleak classic
The Eternal Daughter review - tricksy ghost story with a poignant emotional core
Tilda Swinton (and her dog) excel in Joanna Hogg's latest
Maestro review - the infinite variety of Leonard Bernstein
The music's well chosen, but Carey Mulligan shines brightest as Bernstein's wife Felicia
new music
CMAT, Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow review - an evening of exuberance
The Dublin singer's tales of a toxic relationship were transformed into a party
classical
Grosvenor, Park, Ridout, Soltani, Wigmore Hall review - chamber music supergroup in perfect accord
Thoughtful programming puts quirky novelty alongside big beasts
Dariescu, BBC Philharmonic, Storgårds, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - sounds of unquenchable optimism
Conductor is his own violin soloist in one of two UK premieres
MacMillan's Christmas Oratorio, Lois, Williams, RSNO, MacMillan, Usher Hall, Edinburgh – a great composer at the top of his game
Scottish premiere of a recent masterwork
opera
Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni, Royal College of Music review - a modest one-acter overloaded
Good young singers get more opportunities than the actual work offers
Jephtha, Royal Opera review - uncomfortable sacrifice oratorio not seismic enough
Sobriety and darkness eclipse Handel's dramatic vividness, despite strong performances
theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera - four operas and a recital in one crazy day
Youth takes the comedy award in fringe delights alongside a well-done schlocky rarity
theatre
Odyssey: A Heroic Pantomime, Charles Court Opera, Jermyn Street Theatre review - topsy-turvy Homer
Five heroic women and two instrumentalists go Hellenic, with panache
A Christmas Carol, The Old Vic review - older, wiser, and yet more moving
Christopher Eccleston is a Scrooge for the ages
The Witches, National Theatre review - fun and lively but where's the heart?
Roald Dahl adaptation is busy to a fault but lacks emotion
dance
The Dante Project, Royal Ballet review - brave but flawed take on the Divine Comedy returns
Hell and Purgatory get vivid if diffuse music from Thomas Adès, but Heaven is pallid
The Limit, Linbury Theatre review - a dance-theatre romcom that lacks both rom and com
An attempt to amplify a playscript with dance suggests the play should be left to speak for itself
Anemoi / The Cellist, Royal Ballet review - a feast of music in a neat double bill
Rachmaninov and Elgar take the laurels in a brace of prize-winning one-act ballets
comedy
Trevor Noah: Off the Record, O2 review - welcome return to standup for the polyglot motormouth
Back on tour, the former TV host has lost none of his charisma and charm
Michael McIntyre, Brighton Centre review - observational everyman
Jovial comic's first tour in five years
Books
Anne Michaels: Held review - one story across time
Fragments span the genration gap in this daring family saga of inheritance and trauma
Ishion Hutchinson: School of Instructions review - learning against estrangement
A vivid eulogy for the Jamaican soldiers of the British West Indies Regiment
Jesse Darling: Virgins review - going straight
A Turner Prize-nominee turns their hand to poetry with this visceral first collection
visual arts
Mark Rothko, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris review - a show well worth the trip across the Channel
Abstraction with emotion and soul in a landmark retrospective
Women in Revolt!, Tate Britain review - a super important if overwhelming show
Women protesting with all their might in both art and life
A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography, Tate Modern review - pulling out the stops to address issues around cultural identity
Thirty-six African artists reconnect with their heritage in dramatic and moving images
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