tue 18/02/2025

theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews

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...
Tim Cumming
Tuesday, 18 February 2025
On the first date of a 17-concert tour that had its preview at Celtic Connections in January, Across the Evening Sky begins with the liminal, predatory dangers of associating in...
India Lewis
Tuesday, 18 February 2025
As Valentine’s Day crests around us, and lonely hearts come out of their winter hibernation, what better time to publish writer and journalist Shon Faye’s second book Love in...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 18 February 2025
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an inanimate clay figure, brought to life when a magic word is placed inside its mouth. Piotr Szulkin’s dark 1979 film debut makes reference both to...
David Nice
Monday, 17 February 2025
Genius doesn't always tally with equal opportunities, to paraphrase Doris Lessing. Opera houses have a duty to put on new works by women composers; sometimes an instant classic...
Aleks Sierz
Monday, 17 February 2025
Since when has new writing become so passionless? Mike Bartlett is one of the country’s premiere playwrights and his new play, Unicorn, is about radical sexuality and desire. It’s...
Florence Roberts
Monday, 17 February 2025
Imagine: you take your seat at the best restaurant in town, the waiter arrives with a flourish to fill your water glass, you...
Mark Kidel
Monday, 17 February 2025
There is an atmosphere of otherworldly stillness within the stony womb of a large dilapidated church in Bristol, at the...
Joe Muggs
Monday, 17 February 2025
The question of personality in abstract and ambient music has always been a fascinating one. Without conventional signifiers...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 16 February 2025
Sharks were formed in 1972 by bassist Andy Fraser after he left Free. There were two albums, line-up changes and ripples...
Thomas H Green
Saturday, 15 February 2025
Ro first saw Fat Dog, before anyone had heard of them, at the Windmill in Brixton in front of a crowd of about 25 people....
Boyd Tonkin
Saturday, 15 February 2025
George Gershwin called one of his early classic songs, first created by Fred and Adele Astaire, “Fascinating Rhythm”. It was...
Aleks Sierz
Saturday, 15 February 2025
I always advocate in favour of more sci-fi plays, and over the past decade there have been a gratifying number of them. But...
Mark Kidel
Saturday, 15 February 2025
Park Jiha is a super-talented and gloriously inspired Korean multi-instrumentalist. Her new album follows Philos (2018) and...
Nick Hasted
Friday, 14 February 2025
In his first weeks in office, Harrison Ford’s US president survives an assassination attempt inside the White House, goes to...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 14 February 2025
Russia.It’s impossible to be ambivalent towards that word, that country, indeed that idea, one so very similar to our own,...
David Nice
Friday, 14 February 2025
Does any living composer write better for choirs, or more demandingly when circumstances allow, than James MacMillan?...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 14 February 2025
Ridley Scott’s 2001 film Black Hawk Down was a technically superb blockbuster bristling with thunderous action sequences and...
Katie Colombus
Friday, 14 February 2025
Having recently watched the charming animation Marcelle The Shell With Shoes On with my nine-year-old son, I was going to...

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★★★★ MEMOIR OF A SNAIL Deliciously offbeat Australian animation

★ THREE SISTERS, SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE Souls dissected in brilliantly conceived and executed production

★★★★ MACMILLAN'S 'ORDO VIRTUTUM', BBC SINGERS, JEANNIN, MILTON COURT Choral music's finest advocate runs the gamut in an epic battle of heaven and hell

★★★ FAT DOG, CHALK, BRIGHTON A frenetic techno-rock juggernaut

★★★★ BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY Michael Morris's deft direction produces a maturer kind of romcom

★★ MORE LIFE, ROYAL COURT Posthuman tragedy fails to come alive   

★★★★★ FESTEN, ROYAL OPERA No slack in Mark-Anthony Turnage's operatic treatment of the visceral first Dogme film 

★★ MANIC STREET PREACHERS - CRITICAL THINKING Lots of words, not so many catchy songs

★★★★★ THE YEARS, HAROLD PINTER THEATRE A bravura, joyous feat of storytelling

disc of the day

Blu-ray: Golem

This Polish 1979 Meyrink adaptation is a visually striking dystopian drama

The future of Arts Journalism

 

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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

Surviving Black Hawk Down, Netflix review - the real story behind Ridley Scott's Oscar-winner

Documentary series looks at the 1993 'Battle of Mogadishu' from both sides

Paradise, Disney+ review - enigmatic drama with an unknown destination

Dan Fogelman's new series has an excellent cast but a recycled premise

film

Blu-ray: Golem

This Polish 1979 Meyrink adaptation is a visually striking dystopian drama

Captain America: Brave New World review - talking loud, saying nothing

Muddled filler between Avengers films which hardly deserves Harrison Ford

Memoir of a Snail review - deliciously offbeat Australian animation

A darkly whimsical stop-motion masterpiece examining the shells we create for ourselves

new music

Josienne Clarke, Across the Evening Sky, Kings Place review - celebrating Sandy Denny

The contemporary singer-songwriter holds a torch for the late, great Sandy Denny

Patrick Duff, The Mount Without, Bristol review - sacred music for the soul

A dilapidated Bristol church brought back to vibrant life

Album: Tim Hecker - Shards

Finessed expressiveness as a compilation of soundtrack work coheres

classical

Sidorova, Philharmonia, Alsop, Royal Festival Hall review - ladies of the dance

Vitality, virtuosity and sensuality on a pan-American trip

MacMillan's Ordo Virtutum, BBC Singers, Jeannin, Milton Court review - dramatic journey of a medieval soul

Choral music's finest advocate runs the gamut in an epic battle of heaven and hell

Gilliver, Liverman, Rangwanasha, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - a rainbow of British music

Poetic Maconchy and Walton, surging Vaughan Williams bursting its confines

opera

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Mary, Queen of Scots, English National Opera review - heroic effort for an overcooked history lesson

Heidi Stober delivers as beleaguered regent, but Thea Musgrave's opera is limiting

Festen, Royal Opera review - firing on every front

No slack in Mark-Anthony Turnage's operatic treatment of the visceral first Dogme film

theatre

Unicorn, Garrick Theatre review - wordy and emotionless desire
New West End drama about spicing up marriage is oddly lacking in passion
More Life, Royal Court review - posthuman tragedy fails to come alive
A new sci-fi gothic horror about life after death is intriguing, but flawed

dance

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Phaedra + Minotaur, Royal Ballet and Opera, Linbury Theatre review - a double dose of Greek myth

Opera and dance companies share a theme in this terse but affecting double bill

comedy

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Nina Conti: Whose Face Is It Anyway?, Brighton Dome review - a melee of jubilant spontaneity

The ventriloquist-comedian's improvised hour-long outing is skilful and fabulously entertaining

Books

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Shon Faye: Love in Exile review - the greatest feeling

Love comes under the microscope in this heartfelt analysis of the personal and political

Philip Marsden: Under a Metal Sky review - rock and awe

Myths, mines, and mankind combine in this wide-eyed reading of the earth beneath our feet

visual arts

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Best of 2024: Visual Arts

A great year for women artists

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