theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Boyd Tonkin
Monday, 16 September 2024
It takes stiff competition to outshine Yuja Wang, who last night at the Barbican complemented her spangled silver sheath with a disconcerting pair of shades. But the super-heroine...
Hugh Barnes
Monday, 16 September 2024
The taxi cab has become a recurring motif in modern Iranian cinema, perhaps because it approximates to a kind of dissident bubble within the authoritarian state, a public space...
David Nice
Monday, 16 September 2024
A happy, lucid and bright pianist, a forbidding Everest among piano sonatas: would Boris Giltburg follow a bewitching, ceaselessly engaging first half by rising to the challenge...
Gary Naylor
Monday, 16 September 2024
We meet Joe first at the keys, singing a pretty good song, but we can hear the pain in the voice – but is that the person or the performance? When Ellie walks in, he leaps up...
Kathryn Reilly
Monday, 16 September 2024
You don’t need me to tell you that this particular law enforcer has served up yet another meaty helping of genius. It’s what we expect. So here she is, over-delivering...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 15 September 2024
Although Dagenham’s Sean Buckley & The Breadcrumbs are less than a footnote in the story of beat boom-era Britain, appearances on archive releases have prevented their name...
Justine Elias
Saturday, 14 September 2024
The setting is the lively 1930s London theatre world, but any sense that The Critic will be a lighthearted thriller should...
Sarah Kent
Saturday, 14 September 2024
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers includes many of his best known pictures and, amazingly, it is the first exhibition the...
Gary Naylor
Saturday, 14 September 2024
One wonders what sitcom writers will do when supermarkets finally sweep the last corner shops away with nobody left old...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 14 September 2024
Passage Secret – music by Bizet, Debussy, Fauré, Ravel, Aubert Ludmila Berlinskaya and Arthur Ancelle (piano duet) (...
Aleks Sierz
Saturday, 14 September 2024
Platonic love should be simple – basically you’re best mates. And without the complications of sex, what could go wrong...
Boyd Tonkin
Friday, 13 September 2024
Out of emergencies may come revelations. Sir András Schiff has broken his leg, and we wish him a super-speedy recovery. At...
Alexandra Coghlan
Friday, 13 September 2024
Hauntings, memories, echoes: Antonio Pappano has started his official tenure as chief conductor of the London Symphony...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 13 September 2024
Based on the novel by Elin Hilderbrand, The Perfect Couple is an expensively-dressed fable about a lavish wedding in...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 13 September 2024
Anyone who has seen Lee Miller’s photographs – those taken of her in the 1920s when she was a dazzling American beauty...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 13 September 2024
The latest Greatest Hit to land at the Lyric is Timberlake Wertenbaker’s 1988 award-winning play about a performance of...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 13 September 2024
Going to the theatre can be a little like going to church. One communes on the individual level, one’s faith in the stories...
Markie Robson-Scott
Friday, 13 September 2024
“I’d know her. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. Would I know her? Would I?” John (a brilliant Jared Harris, who’s also an...
Joe Muggs
Friday, 13 September 2024
I made a terrible mistake when I first got this LP: I played it on my laptop speakers. That’s not the straight up...
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disc of the day
Album: Joan as Police Woman - Lemons, Limes and Orchids
A deep, delicious dive into the many facets of love by the master songwriter
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
The Perfect Couple, Netflix review - an inconvenient death ruins lavish Nantucket wedding
Liev Schreiber steals the show in adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand's novel
Sambre: Anatomy of a Crime, BBC Four review - satisfying novelistic retelling of a French true crime saga
Compelling story of a rapist who hid in plain sight for 30 years
Kaos, Netflix review - playing fast and profuse with the Greek myths
A rainbow of acting talent, but too many ideas thrown into the labyrinth
film
My Favourite Cake review - woman, love, and freedom
A 70-year-old widow liberates herself in authoritarian Iran
The Critic review - beware the acid-tipped pen
Ian McKellen's vicious scribe terrorises the 1930s West End
Lee review - shaky biopic of an iconic photographer
Kate Winslet brings her long-nurtured Lee Miller passion project to the screen
new music
Album: Joan as Police Woman - Lemons, Limes and Orchids
A deep, delicious dive into the many facets of love by the master songwriter
Music Reissues Weekly: Sean Buckley & The Breadcrumbs
Dagenham mod-beat band’s first recording surfaces - 60 years late
Album: Floating Points - Cascade
High energy techno and rave from the synth craftsman needs your best speakers
classical
Wang, Lapwood, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - grace and power from two keyboard heroines
Full-strength fun on an evening of spectacle and swagger
Beethoven Sonata Cycle 1, Boris Giltburg, Wigmore Hall review - running the gamut
From the official first to the toughest – quite a launch for a series this pianist knows well
Classical CDs: Soft toys, starlings and tarantellas
French piano duets, a sung ballet plus two discs of viola music
opera
Prom 68, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Garsington Opera review - eerie beauty sometimes faintly glittering
Strong cast and top orchestra project as best they can in a fine company's first Proms visit
La traviata, Royal Opera review - a charismatic soprano in a serviceable revival
Richard Eyre's classic production looks great but lacks fizz
Prom 52, Carmen, Glyndebourne Festival review - fine-tuning a masterpiece
No loss of vivid focus as the Albert Hall becomes Bar Lillas Pastia
theatre
The Band Back Together, Arcola Theatre review - three is a dangerous number
The second album is still tough, even if you never recorded the first
Kim's Convenience, Riverside Studios review - KC and the sunshine vibe
The play that inspired a Netflix series is heartwarming, but needs more spice to bite
The Real Ones, Bush Theatre review - engrossing, enjoyable and quietly inspiring
Waleed Akhtar’s new play is about platonic love in a contemporary context
dance
The Mad Hatter's Tea Party, ZooNation, Linbury Theatre review - a joyous celebration of differentness
Kate Prince's hip hop take on Lewis Carroll is energetic, charming and moving by turns
Ballet Nights #006, Cadogan Hall review - a mixed bag of excellence
Gala enterprise, 12 months on, will be a stayer if it keeps up this level of excitement
theartsdesk Q&A: Nina Ananiashvili, founder of the State Ballet of Georgia
Bolshoi superstar who made her name in London returns with a new generation
comedy
Adam Sandler, Netflix Special - songs, silliness and deconstructing stand-up
The comic and director Josh Sadie have fun with the form
Blu-ray: Laurel and Hardy - The Silent Years
Always watchable, occasionally hysterical collection of silent shorts
Books
Ellen McWilliams: Resting Places - On Wounds, War and the Irish Revolution review - finding art in the inarticulable
A violent history finds a home in this impressionistic blend of literary criticism and memoir
Claire Messud: This Strange Eventful History review - home is where the heart was
A brutally honest and epic narrative follows a family doomed to wander the earth
Paul Alexander: Bitter Crop - The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday's Last Year review - setting the record straight
Busting myths in this sensitive appraisal of a jazz legend
visual arts
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers, National Gallery review - passions translated into paint
Turmoil made manifest
Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent, Whitechapel Gallery review - photomontages sizzling with rage
Fifty years of political protest by a master craftsman
Dominique White: Deadweight, Whitechapel Gallery review - sculptures that seem freighted with history
Dunked in the sea to give them a patina of age, sculptures that feel timeless
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