theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Demetrios Matheou
Thursday, 16 May 2024
It’s unusual for a play to be revived with its original director and star, let alone a decade after they premiered the piece. But here we are, with Jeremy Herrin again steering...
Guy Oddy
Thursday, 16 May 2024
Let’s put our cards firmly on the table here. I am a big fan of Bruce Robinson’s cinematic masterpiece about two out-of-work actors who live in Camden Town in 1969 and escape to...
Veronica Lee
Thursday, 16 May 2024
For fans of a certain age the name Jack Docherty will always be associated with a very good run of chat shows on Channel 5; he was also the star of Channel 4's sketch show...
Thomas H Green
Thursday, 16 May 2024
It’s a long way to the middle. Jack Savoretti has worked hard to get there. He’s grafted. His first album, 2007’s Between the Minds, hinted that his musical DNA bestrode early-...
Markie Robson-Scott
Wednesday, 15 May 2024
Two women were best friends at school but they haven’t seen each other in years. One is an uptight divorcée, the other a free spirit. They have nothing in common any more but go...
Graham Fuller
Wednesday, 15 May 2024
A visually dazzling, fiercely acted psychological drama with a manic comic edge, Hoard channels an 18-year-old South Londoner’s quest to lay the ghost – or reclaim the spirit – of...
Miranda Heggie
Wednesday, 15 May 2024
It’s hard to imagine that The Arches – a string of stylish glass-fronted units in prime city centre location, housing...
Nick Hasted
Wednesday, 15 May 2024
Claire Denis’ 1988 debut is a sensual madeleine to her Cameroonian childhood, with its taste of termites on butter, sound of...
Boyd Tonkin
Tuesday, 14 May 2024
Programme notes for Mahler’s monumental symphonies will often blithely chat about the works’ epic struggle between life and...
Kieron Tyler
Tuesday, 14 May 2024
If there’s a feeling of déjà vu, it isn’t detectable. Conchúr White played St Pancras Old Church in April 2016 with County...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 14 May 2024
Glance at The Holdovers’ synopsis and you might suspect that Alexander Payne’s latest effort is a slice of lightweight...
Adam Sweeting
Monday, 13 May 2024
Director Cesar Diaz’s debut feature film was made on a modest budget and confines its running time to a crisp 78 minutes,...
Veronica Lee
Monday, 13 May 2024
Rhod Gilbert is disarmingly honest about his thought process when he received his diagnosis of head and neck cancer in 2022...
Thomas H Green
Monday, 13 May 2024
By midway, things are cooking. “Can U Dig It?”, a post-modern list-song from another age (Ok, 1989), boasts a whopping...
Mark Kidel
Monday, 13 May 2024
It’s been a long while since Beth Gibbons released an album. Portishead’s Third was out in 2008. She has lived through...
Rachel Halliburton
Sunday, 12 May 2024
Gesualdo was, in the words of New Yorker critic Alex Ross – “irrefutably badass”, a double murderer, sado-masochist and...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 12 May 2024
The name, Caron and Michelle Maso explained to Los Angeles radio DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, was a literal description. “We’re...
Nick Hasted
Saturday, 11 May 2024
Planet of the Apes is the most artfully replenished franchise, from the original series’ elegant time-travel loop to the...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 11 May 2024
Sir Neville Marriner: The Complete Warner Classics Recordings (Warner)Assembling Sir Neville Marriner’s complete...
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tv
Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, Disney+ review - how the boy from Sayreville, NJ conquered the world
Four-part documentary series outstays its welcome
Red Eye, ITV review - Anglo-Chinese relations tested in junk-food thriller
Richard Armitage returns in another preposterous potboiler
Blue Lights Series 2, BBC One review - still our best cop show despite a slacker structure
The engaging Belfast cops are less tightly focused this time around
film
Two Tickets to Greece review - the highs and lows of a holiday from hell
Laure Calamy, Olivia Côte and Kristin Scott Thomas star in Marc Fitoussi's silly French comedy
Hoard review - not any old rubbish
A star is born amid the muck and squalor of Luna Carmoon's ambitious directorial debut
new music
Album: Jack Savoretti - Miss Italia
M.O.R. singer embraces family history with an album of Italian pop
Hidden Door 10th Birthday Party, St James Quarter, Edinburgh review - going underground
Car park transformed into gallery/rave venue for multi-art celebration
Conchúr White, St Pancras Old Church review - side-stepping the past to embrace the future
Northern Irish troubadour pushes forward
classical
Coote, LSO, Tilson Thomas, Barbican review - the triumph of life
A great, ailing conductor rises to Mahler's mightiest challenge
Britten Sinfonia, The Marian Consort, Milton Court review - a journey around turbulent spirit Gesualdo
Contemporary homages among the works in this celebration of the Renaissance 'badass'
Classical CDs: Coffee, peppercorns and puppets
A prolific conductor's centenary celebrated, plus Hungarian ballet music and baroque keyboard concertos
opera
L'Olimpiade, Irish National Opera review - Vivaldi's long-distance run sustained by perfect teamwork
Sporting confusions and star-crossed lovers clarified by vivacious singing and playing
Remembering conductor Andrew Davis (1944-2024)
Fellow conductors, singers, instrumentalists and administrators recall a true Mensch
Götterdämmerung, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - outside looking and listening in, always with fascination
Every orchestral phrase and colour perfect, vocal drama often a notch below
theatre
People, Places and Things, Trafalgar Theatre review – a scintillating shot in the arm
Denise Gough reprises her star-making performance in Duncan MacMillan’s riotous reflection on addiction and recovery
Withnail and I, Birmingham Rep revenue – Bruce Robinson’s 1987 film makes for a theatrical hit
Withnail and Marwood fix up the Jag and head for Birmingham
Sappho, Southwark Playhouse Elephant review - a glitzy celebration of sapphic love
Too much camp and not enough content in this tribute to the Greek poet
dance
The Winter's Tale, Royal Ballet review - what a story, and what a way to tell it!
A compelling case for ROH's ballet-friendly rebrand
All You Need Is Death review - a future folk horror classic
Irish folkies seek a cursed ancient song in Paul Duane's impressive fiction debut
MacMillan Celebrated, Royal Ballet review - out of mothballs, three vintage works to marvel at
Less-known pieces spanning the career of a great choreographer underline his greatness
comedy
Jack Doherty, Soho Theatre review - warm and witty childhood memoir
Former chat show host on his David Bowie obsession
Rhod Gilbert, G-Live Guildford review - cancer, constipation and celebrity treatment
Finding the funny in illness
Books
Extract: Pariah Genius by Iain Sinclair
A form-defying writer explores the troubled mindscape of a Soho photographer
Jonn Elledge: A History of the World in 47 Borders review - a view from the boundaries
Enjoyable journey through the byways of how lines on maps have shaped the modern world
Lisa Kaltenegger: Alien Earths review - a whole new world
Kaltenegger's traverses space in her thoughtful exploration of the search for life among the stars
visual arts
Brancusi, Pompidou Centre, Paris review - a sculptor's spiritual quest for form and essence
The Paris landmark signs off with a historic survey
Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider, Tate Modern review - a missed opportunity
Wonderful paintings, but only half the story
Eye to Eye: Homage to Ernst Scheidegger, MASI Lugano review - era-defining artist portraits
One of Switzerland's greatest photographers celebrated with a major retrospective
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