theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Jenny Gilbert
Wednesday, 29 March 2023
With all the talk – and, frankly, fear – around AI and the increasing dominance of the digital world, it’s fascinating to see what dance has to say about it.Although...
Robert Beale
Wednesday, 29 March 2023
Mansfield Park was written to be a country house opera – that kind where you have a smallish number of performers, no chorus, and the “set” is simply the rooms and furnishings of...
Guy Oddy
Wednesday, 29 March 2023
1982 is only A Certain Ratio’s third album this century but it’s one that’s brimming with funky vibes that are more than enough to get anyone on their feet and dancing with a big...
Helen Hawkins
Tuesday, 28 March 2023
How much more is there left to be said about the excellence of Succession? It’s back for a final season, and devotees will pore over every detail, every conversational ploy from...
Thomas H Green
Tuesday, 28 March 2023
As Inspiral Carpets play “She Comes in the Fall”, a great song and one of their signature tunes, its martial drumming drags me into my own past. Seeing them play it at a 600-...
Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou
Tuesday, 28 March 2023
“There is another world… a way of perceiving that is chaotic and awesome and terrifying,” announces Seraphina Madsen’s cigarillo-smoking, telepathic cat.Lecturing a teenage coven...
Saskia Baron
Tuesday, 28 March 2023
Last month’s Storyville: Sex on Screen (available on BBC iPlayer) was a slick, speedy (and repetitive) canter...
Helen Hawkins
Monday, 27 March 2023
There’s no point in being upset with the writer Steven Knight for doing what he usually does; even so, many viewers will...
David Nice
Monday, 27 March 2023
Is Korngold a second-rank composer with some first-rate ideas? Most performances of the 23-year-old Viennese prodigy's Die...
Bernard Hughes
Monday, 27 March 2023
Last night at the Barbican was my first experience of a film with live orchestra, which has become a big thing in the last...
Sarah Kent
Monday, 27 March 2023
“I believe Ayahuasca is something very deep,” says spiritual leader José López Sánchez in the documentary Antidote. “It...
Robert Beale
Monday, 27 March 2023
It was very much the formula as before, as Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Gábor Takács-Nagy moved their edition of the Mozart...
Mark Kidel
Monday, 27 March 2023
This is an enchanting album which brings together four outstanding musicians, brilliant in their own right, but also adept...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 26 March 2023
From around July 1977, Jeremy Gluck began contributing to the UK music weekly Sounds. Amongst his pieces were features on...
Nick Hasted
Saturday, 25 March 2023
Francisca Alegría’s debut is an eco-fable about mourning and enduring love, for a mother and Mother Earth. We start by Chile...
Thomas H Green
Saturday, 25 March 2023
Welcome to the church of Mulvey. The sold-out venue is packed with a svelte crowd, mostly ranging in age between about 30...
Sarah Kent
Saturday, 25 March 2023
What a feast! Congratulations are due to the National Gallery for its latest blockbuster After Impressionism: Inventing...
Adam Sweeting
Saturday, 25 March 2023
Since the first John Wick film from 2014 became an unexpected hit, the Wick franchise has blossomed into a booming business...
Aleks Sierz
Saturday, 25 March 2023
The act of idol worship is, at one and the same time, both distantly ancient and compellingly contemporary. Whether it is...
tv
Succession, Season Four, Sky Atlantic review - powerful beginning for the endgame
Patriarch vs pretenders: a primal story that's never been more compellingly told
Great Expectations, BBC One review - modernised, muddied and muddled
Steven Knight gives the Dickens classic a Peaky Blinders feel
Endeavour: The Final Episode, ITV1 review - the final bow for Oxford's finest
The curtain falls on a milestone in TV detection
film
Things to Come, LSO, Strobel, Barbican review - blissful visions of the future
Landmark film given the live-orchestra treatment
Antidote review - two films in one that lose sight of their message
Taking Ayahuasca becomes a metaphor for saving the planet in Marc Silver's documentary
new music
Inspiral Carpets, Concorde 2, Brighton review - a raucous catalogue of Madchester-era hits
Despite being hampered by a muddy sound the Nineties veterans deliver a solidly entertaining set
classical
Things to Come, LSO, Strobel, Barbican review - blissful visions of the future
Landmark film given the live-orchestra treatment
Bavouzet, Manchester Camerata, Takács-Nagy, Stoller Hall, Manchester review - spirit of the 1780s
Historically informed playing and a delight to hear
Fröst, Philharmonia, Lazarova, Kuusisto, Southbank Centre review - congenial new works complemented by live-wire classics
Two concerts revolving around composer Anna Clyne offer plenty of other surprises
opera
Mansfield Park, RNCM, Manchester review - bringing out the best
Costume drama in music, with a bit of a surprise
The Dead City, English National Opera review - strong dream world, weak love story
Taxing lead roles bravely taken, but Korngold's life-over-death dynamic doesn't quite work
Turandot, Royal Opera review - spectacle and sound wow in this significant revival
Pappano marshals the glitter and a fine cast delivers the goods
theatre
Black Superhero, Royal Court review - ambitious, but messy
Debut play about sex, race and queerness is a disappointing mishmash
Dance of Death, National Theatre of Norway, Coronet Theatre review - straight for the jugular
White-heat Strindberg from Norwegian actors undeterred by technical hitches
The Way Old Friends Do, Park Theatre review - sweet, but flimsy
Mark Gatiss and Ian Hallard’s ABBA tribute is fun, but clunky
dance
Tom Dale Company, The Place review - immersive and genre-busting
Dazzling, ingenious, thought provoking - a big thumbs-up to the digital revolution
'You want to cry from loving to do it so much' - Lynn Seymour 1939-2023
Remembering the unique ballerina who injected me with her poison
Turn It Out with Tiler Peck, Sadler's Wells review - America's ballet wonder-woman raises the barre
On her UK solo debut, New York City Ballet’s queen of speed gives audiences a wild ride
comedy
Bridget Christie, The Haymarket, Basingstoke review - making the menopause funny
Turning 50 can be fun
Books
Seraphina Madsen: Aurora review - the tarot won’t save us
Homage to the history of the dark arts and the witchy women who realised them
Margaret Atwood: Old Babes in the Wood review - bookending the short story
Semi-autobiographical tales of loss and love sit oddly among snails and aliens
Janet Malcolm: Still Pictures - On Photography and Memory review - a rare glimpse at a guarded personal history
Old photographs catalyse this evasive and poignant book of memoirs
visual arts
After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art, National Gallery review - an impressive tour de force
But many names are missing from this international survey
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: Paths to Abstraction, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle review - secret worlds revealed
A journey of artistic and personal discovery like no other
The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance, National Gallery review - put in context, a much-loved picture reveals its complexity
An aged, would-be seductress is reunited with her reluctant partner
latest comments
What a wonderful dancer/actress she was! She...
I agree with you. With all my heart.
Not a single song out of the 40 is mentioned....
Great critique
I'm no great U2 fan but they deserve better than...
This is a pathetic display. I would think the...
I also loved the way that the “who are the real...
Seymour's silent scream of pain in The Invitation...