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We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts lovers and professionals alike – but the…
Boyd Tonkin |
In the delirious and exhilarating Sephardic dance that finished their concert devoted to the Jewish, Muslim and Christian music of Jerusalem, one of the Apollo’s Fire fiddlers…
Robert Beale |
There are few concert experiences as satisfying as hearing cornerstone works of the Romantic repertoire played with energy, commitment and panache, which is what Saturday’s BBC…
David Nice |
Before last night's still-shocking saga of a downtrodden soul began, Southbank Artistic Director Mark Ball came on to tell us that while concerts were mere events, Multitudes, "…
Guy Oddy |
It must be exhausting to be a member of Belfast hip-hop crew, Kneecap. Having already recorded a debut album and fistful of fine singles like “H.O.O.D.” and “Get Your Brits Out”…
Nick Hasted |
In Mark Jenkin’s Cornish cinema, lost boats, drowned men and ways of life wash back in with the tide, nothing truly gone. Where his feature debut Bait (2019) tackled the violence…
Kieron Tyler
Last year, Paul Weller compiled a collection of his favourite soul tracks. A highlight of That Sweet Sweet Music was Jon Lucien’s affecting “Search for the Inner Self.” Originally…
aleks.sierz
Decades are never neat: they don’t simply go from 1 to 10, or 0 to 9. So it is with the Swinging Sixties, which actually began – like sexual intercourse for poet Philip Larkin –…
Rachel Halliburton
I have to confess, I hadn’t been sure what to expect when I heard about The Art of Fugue staged with acrobats. This latest collaborative experiment in the Southbank Centre’s…
Katie Colombus
In an era of excessive production for live shows, it is striking to see a band of Big Thief’s stature walk onto a stage this large and offer almost nothing but the songs…
Bernard Hughes
Messiaen’s Turangalîla, his sprawling 10-movement, 75-minute extravaganza, is garish, graphic and glorious. It is a full-bore, Technicolor, over-the-top, spectacular blast of…
graham.rickson
Sir Adrian Boult: Complete Stereo Recordings 1956-1978 (Warner Classics)
Image
This hefty box set contains 79 discs, the…
peter.quinn
This first full-length album from K-pop sextet NCT WISH – one of a number of NCT sub-units including NCT 127, NCT Dream, WayV, and NCT U – is a 10-track delight, with not a filler…
Jonathan Geddes
In just over three years Olivia Dean has gone from taking the stage at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow to selling out two nights at the city’s largest venue. Such a leap up in…
Robert Beale
Ives’ The Unanswered Question remained unanswered when the BBC Philharmonic and John Storgårds performed it in the Bridgewater Hall in January, but on this occasion, with Thomas…
Joe Muggs
All of us, no matter how media-literate we think we are, in some way or another absorb received opinion about particular musicians. It’s particularly easy when they are, in the…
Thomas H. Green
Mille Petrozza was born in 1967 to a Calabrian father, and a mother who was a refugee from Communist East Germany. He grew up in the Altenessen district of Essen, in Germany’s…
Kieron Tyler
Lurking within the heaviness and tractor-reversing-through-sludge dynamics of Hastings-based hairies Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell’s fifth album is a sense of poppiness. In an…
aleks.sierz
Wars in the Middle East provoke furious arguments. Red hot. So why is British theatre so cool, distinctly chilly, about staging new work about these controversial issues? If any…
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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.
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tv
Charlotte Regan's genre-jumping drama defies categorisation
Well paced and excellently cast, this revival still needs more of a sense of danger
Is anything real in Ben Chanan's digital dystopia?
film
A fishing boat falls through time in Mark Jenkin's immersive, haunted tale
Messiaen’s 'Turangalîla' well played, but overwhelmed by a trivialising animation
Another Petzold heroine tries on a different identity in his latest mesmerising drama
new music
Belfast hip-hoppers explicitly refuse to tone things down
Soul treasures from 1969 are made easily available for the first time
The Brooklyn four prove less is more
classical
Uplifting celebrations of musical kinship across cultures
Romantic cornerstones shine alongside Julia Wolfe’s document of trauma
Circa's acrobatics bracingly express a philosophical idea of the body
opera
Berg's queasy setting of a visionary play as you never quite heard or saw it before
Love among the chills in Bartók’s House of Horrors
Gerald Barry's Salome, NSO Ireland, Kuhn, National Concert Hall, Dublin review - funny-queasy genius
Paradoxically both ordered and wild(e), with weird twists and superb performances
theatre
Life of Brian Epstein explored in new play which never really satisfies
Autobiographical show about the Middle East prefers utopian longing to political engagement
A spiky depiction of the struggle between trade union leader Brenda Dean and Rupert Murdoch
dance
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Body & Soul, English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells review - a surefire hit and an absolute plonker
Getting it very right and very wrong in this contemporary double bill
After 25 years and counting, Cassa Pancho's fine company remains essential
comedy
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
The character comic looks back at his career
books
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
The last surviving member of Beyond the Fringe never ceases to engage
A small-scale journey through literary afterlives unveils a world of wonders
visual arts
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
An artist who has lost her way
Gorgeous paintings in search of belonging
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