Reviews
4.48 Psychosis, Royal Opera, Lyric Hammersmith review - despairing truth in song and speech
Thursday, 26 April 2018
Depression, with or without psychotic episodes, is a rare subject for drama or music theatre - and with good reason: the sheer unrelenting monotony of anguish and self-absorption is hard to reproduce within a concentrated time-span.
Absolute Hell, National Theatre review - high gloss show saves over-rated classic
Thursday, 26 April 2018
Rodney Ackland must be the most well-known forgotten man in postwar British theatre. His legend goes like this: Absolute Hell was originally titled The Pink Room, and first staged in 1952 at the Lyric Hammersmith, where it got a critical mauling. The Sunday Times’s Harold Hobson said that the audience “had the impression of being present, if not at the death of talent, at least at its very serious illness”.
The Marriage of Figaro, English Touring Opera...
Thursday, 26 April 2018
The Fates did not want theartsdesk to review English Touring Opera’s new production of The Marriage of Figaro. The Beast from the East intervened to...
The Prudes, Royal Court review - hilarious but...
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
Playwright Anthony Neilson has always been fascinated by sex. I mean, who isn’t? But he has made it a central part of his career. In his bad-boy in-...
Strictly Ballroom: The Musical, Piccadilly...
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
A much tinkered-with show needs to go back to the drawing board, if this latest iteration of Strictly Ballroom: The Musical is any gauge. Having...
The Split, BBC One, review - Abi Morgan’s densely packed divorce drama
Nicola Walker is the real deal in a hectic family law saga |
Matthias Goerne, Seong-Jin Cho, Wigmore Hall review - slow and slower Strauss
A disappointingly one-geared Lieder recital |
Kathleen Turner: Finding My Voice, The Other Palace review - a familiar name in freshly exciting form
The screen and stage star invents herself anew, this time in song |
God of War review - action adventure epic sets new standards
Father-son adventure is a slick and gorgeous spectacle |
Westworld, Series 2, Sky Atlantic review - big trouble in synthetic paradise
Apocalypse looms as androids go on the rampage |
Taryn Simon: An Occupation of Loss, Islington Green review - divine lamentation
A journey to the underworld in song |
Flo and Joan, Soho Theatre review - sisters in satirical harmony
Musical comedy with complex rhymes |
The Deminer review - life on the edge in Iraq
One man risks literal life and limb in this fascinating war documentary |
LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - incandescent swansongs by Mahler and Tippett
The London Symphony Orchestra's supreme soundsmith on top form |
The Woman in White, BBC One review - camp Victoriana
Wilkie Collins's Gothic whodunnit gets a florid treatment for telly |
Ed Byrne, Touring review - the perils of modern fatherhood
Personal but not self-indulgent |
Wang, RSNO, Oundjian, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - percussion sets Shostakovich's 'Leningrad' ablaze
Music Director pairs two very different Russian works in his final season |
Martin Gayford: Modernists & Mavericks review - people, places and paint
Utterly human account of the painters of London over the 30 years since 1945 |
Reissue CDs Weekly: New York Dolls
'Personality Crisis' is a frequently wonderful collection of what New York’s finest did not originally release |
Ibragimova, Tiberghien, Wigmore Hall review – light, bright and melodic Brahms
Sensitive but dynamic playing perfectly conveys the music’s carefree spirit |
Rasheeda Speaking, Trafalgar Studios review - unsettling comedy, thorny racism
Bravura performance from Tanya Moodie in sharp new American drama of racial discord |
Home From Home, BBC One review - Johnny Vegas as everyman hero
Gentle class-divide sitcom |
theartsdesk on Vinyl: Record Store Day Special 2018
RSD 2018 vinyl reviews of Snapped Ankles, Undertones, LUMP, Fleet Foxes, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sparks, Miles Davis, Yazoo and more |
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society review - artery-furring whimsy
Lily James seeks postwar secrets in a Channel Islands weepie |
Bat Out of Hell, Dominion Theatre review - the Meat Loaf musical returns, batty as ever
The booming behemoth is right at home in We Will Rock You’s old digs |
True Horror, Channel 4 review - a Ronseal approach to ghost stories
New anthology based on real accounts provides the scares and not much else |
Roy Orbison In Dreams Hologram, Eventim Apollo review - it's a gig, Jim, but not as we know it
A virtual Big O takes us back to the future |
Andsnes, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - dazzling symphonic contrasts, plus oddities
Stunning articulation in generous helpings of Stravinsky with Shostakovich and Debussy |
Funny Cow review - Maxine Peake is stellar
Fictional biopic portrays the comedy circuit from a bygone age |
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