theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Thomas H Green
Thursday, 08 June 2023
Tony Kushner’s early 1990s play Angels in America is an epochal, mystical, political, state-of-the-nation address, revolving around the AIDs epidemic. By no means straightforward...
David Nice
Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Union Jacks could be stowed away, and EU ones figuratively, furtively flourished: this was a concert of celebratory music for a Hanoverian king by a Saxon composer, by then...
Laura De Lisle
Wednesday, 07 June 2023
It’s been more than 20 years since the premiere of The Shape of Things, Neil LaBute’s prickly drama about couples and friends and the ways we change each other. And boy, does it...
Joe Muggs
Wednesday, 07 June 2023
There’s been a good deal of discussion on “the socials” about how much Janelle Monáe’s sexy image is a new thing or a big deal.Casual viewers, still stuck on the suit-wearing...
Jon Turney
Tuesday, 06 June 2023
If you cannot even step into the same river twice, how to take the measure of the ocean? Dipping your toes at the beach is irresistible, but uninformative. Sampling stuff out at...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 06 June 2023
Mario Bava and Dario Argento are cited as key influences on Robert Sigl’s debut feature Laurin (1989). British viewers will also be reminded of the series of MR James ghost story...
Joseph Middleton
Monday, 05 June 2023
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.” Replace a few of George Orwell’s...
David Nice
Monday, 05 June 2023
Do we really need instrumental Shostakovich with lighting, movement, costumes and video projection? I might have said no...
Liz Thomson
Monday, 05 June 2023
There are few contemporary journalists whose names are instantly familiar – and usually it’s for the wrong reasons. Polly...
Tom Carr
Monday, 05 June 2023
In 1995 Dave Grohl returned with a new project and album, called Foo Fighters, following the death of Nirvana band-mate and...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 04 June 2023
“It takes a real effort to sound this small, this timid; to resist the effort to rock out and kick pedal. Singer ‘Amelia’ (...
Graham Fuller
Saturday, 03 June 2023
The actress Sydney Sweeney’s face in the harrowing docudrama Reality is an ever-evolving map, its contours and pallor...
Helen Hawkins
Saturday, 03 June 2023
The inspirations for the directing debut of Benjamin Millepied, choreographer and dancer in Black Swan, are cited as Merimée...
Graham Fuller
Saturday, 03 June 2023
Needy, truculent, and aggressive, an in-your-face stick of intensity and guilt-inducing melancholy, privileged young Amanda...
Harry Thorfinn-George
Saturday, 03 June 2023
At first, I misread the title of the lead single “Seaforth” from King Krule’s fourth album, Space Heavy, as “Sea Froth...
Jane Edwardes
Friday, 02 June 2023
We all need a break from time to time, especially now given the grim state of the world. So it’s not surprising that comedy...
Jonathan Geddes
Friday, 02 June 2023
There are a few perils to saying supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, as Janette Manrara discovered on this opening night of...
Cheri Amour
Friday, 02 June 2023
Five years ago, breaking dry January a few days early, I joined a throng of folks amongst the merch boxes and strip lights...
Helen Hawkins
Thursday, 01 June 2023
Devoted fans may not learn anything that new about Noel Coward from Barnaby Thompson’s documentary Mad About the Boy, but...
disc of the day
Album: Christine and the Queens - PARANOÏA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE
French star's new one is a concept piece, featuring Madonna, that's overlong but sometimes persuasive
tv
Succession Season Four finale, Sky Atlantic review - a glorious bonfire of the vanities
The Roy family saga comes to a satisfyingly bruising end
Steeltown Murders, BBC One review - eloquent true-crime drama about tracking a serial killer 30 years on
How South Wales Police used DNA testing for the first time
Hannah Gadsby, Netflix special review - shaggy dog story of marital bliss
Tasmanian talks about marriage, cultural differences and autism
film
Reality review - Sydney Sweeney excels as a whistleblower
Chilling docudrama re-creates Reality Winner's interrogation by FBI agents at her suburban home
Carmen review - curio from choreographer turned director Benjamin Millepied
A mismatched showcase for Paul Mescal's powerful talent
new music
Album: Christine and the Queens - PARANOÏA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE
French star's new one is a concept piece, featuring Madonna, that's overlong but sometimes persuasive
Album: Janelle Monáe - The Age of Pleasure
Monáe's turn for the saucy marks a true creative renaissance
Album: Foo Fighters - But Here We Are
The pre-eminent stadium rockers' poignant and heart-wrenching latest is coloured deeply by their loss and grief
classical
Handel for the King, Le Concert Spirituel, Niquet, Wigmore Hall at St James's Spanish Place review - post-coronation celebrations
'Zadok the Priest' becomes a 'smooth classic' in a good way, amidst other royal blazes
'Right now, we're in chaos': pianist and Leeds Lieder director Joseph Middleton on catastrophic cuts to arts funding
A superb organisation is commended, then gets its grant axed for missing 'data collection'
Concert Theatre DSCH, Norwegian CO, Oslo Opera House Scene 2 review - Shostakovich choreographed for strings and accordion
90 minutes of by-heart playing with movement from some of the world's best players
opera
Rigoletto, Opera Holland Park review - Verdi's Duke gets the Oxbridge treatment
A handsome season opener doesn't quite stab where it counts
Requiem, Opera North review - partnership and diversity
Choral-orchestral performance meets contemporary dance in cross-cultural fusion
Götterdämmerung, Longborough Festival review - from the hieratic to the mundane and back
Wagner's gallon in a pint pot with mixed results
theatre
The Shape of Things, Park Theatre review - the shape of what, exactly?
Revival of Neil La Bute's ruthless 2001 drama let down by clumsy writing
Bleak Expectations, Criterion Theatre review - popular radio comedy takes to the stage
Entertaining mash-up of Dickensian tropes
Mad About the Boy review - entertaining cradle-to-grave Noel Coward documentary
The Master's life seen close up but with no warts
dance
Requiem, Opera North review - partnership and diversity
Choral-orchestral performance meets contemporary dance in cross-cultural fusion
Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT1), Sadler's Wells review - an extinction rebellion in dance
A rare visit from Europe's No.1 contemporary troupe makes a powerful eco-protest
Hunting legendary treasure with ballet's Indiana Jones - Pierre Lacotte 1932-2023
The prolific recreator of early ballets has died, leaving a lively argument
comedy
John Kearns, Brighton Komedia review - Van Gogh, joining the circus and pooey nappies
Reflections on fatherhood and creating art
Dear Billy, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh review - powerful tribute to Scottish pride
Celebration of Scotland's iconic comedy legend Billy Connolly is a moving portrait of a nation
Books
Helen Czerski: Blue Machine review - how the ocean works
Czerski takes a deep dive to explore the ocean-as-engine
Polly Toynbee: An Uneasy Inheritance - My Family and Other Radicals review - looking back
The burden of a social conscience in an experience memoir from the acclaimed journalist
Sophia Giovannitti: Working Girl - On Selling Art and Selling Sex review - portrait of the artist as sex worker
A thoughtful debut treatise that finds intimacies in surprising places
visual arts
Moon Is the Oldest TV review - a fitting tribute to a visionary modern artist
Authoritative documentary that defines the genius of Nam June Paik
Sarah Sze: Metronome, Artangel at Peckham Rye station review - an installation of visual complexity and physical simplicity
The detritus that accumulates in our over-stimulated brains
Isaac Julien: What Freedom is to Me, Tate Britain review - a journey from making documentaries to making art
A film-maker goes from speaking to the street to addressing the museum
latest comments
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