Reviews
Reissue CDs Weekly: Scars - Author! Author!
Sunday, 06 December 2020
Scars’s tour de force album Author! Author! has been out of sight for too long. Originally released in 1981, it first reappeared on a swiftly withdrawn CD in 2007. Apparently, there were issues about where the rights for its reissue lay. Now, it has re-emerged.
The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Bristol Old Vic/Kneehigh/Wise Children online review – ravishing vision of Chagall's early life
Saturday, 05 December 2020
One of Marc Chagall’s last commissions was for a stained-glass window in Chichester Cathedral, which channelled his characteristically exuberant spirituality into a response to the verse from Psalm 150, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord”.
Host review - Zoom seance triggers unspeakable...
Saturday, 05 December 2020
Lockdowns must be good for something, right? British writer-director Rob Savage (a 2013 Screen International Star of Tomorrow, factoid fans) has made...
Falling review - Viggo Mortensen's powerful...
Friday, 04 December 2020
“California is for cocksuckers and flag-burners. Did they know you were a fag in the army?” Willis (Lance Henriksen; best known as Bishop in Alien)...
Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester online...
Friday, 04 December 2020
The Hallé have been slow off the mark, compared with some, in their response to the challenge of concert-giving in the Covid era. But now that they...
The Dambusters, Channel 5 review - yet another telling of the Bouncing Bomb story
An eager Dan Snow recreates the fabled mission of Guy Gibson and 617 Squadron |
County Lines review - a scary descent into drug-dealer purgatory
How criminal gangs lure vulnerable children into their distribution rackets |
Natalie Palamides: Nate: A One Man Show, Netflix review - deep dive into toxic masculinity still has power
'One-man' show about consent |
Zanele Muholi, Tate Modern review - photography as protest
Pictures so confrontational they knock you sideways |
Mank review – David Fincher’s brilliant, bitter-sweet paean to Hollywood’s Golden Age
Gary Oldman is on top form as Citizen Kane’s scathing screenwriter, Herman Mankiewicz |
Mary Chapin Carpenter, One Night Lonely livestream review - down-home and perfectly paced
Thanksgiving at Wolf Trap with a musical pilgrim |
Collective review - waging war on corruption
Scarifying documentary about murderous bribery in Romania's health system |
The Undoing, Series Finale, Sky Atlantic review - bluff and double-bluff as the truth is revealed
Murder mystery reaches dramatic courtroom climax |
Christine Rice, Julius Drake, Wigmore Hall review - songs of love and death
A great mezzo's journey from cradle to grave |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 61: Amy Winehouse, Krust, Motörhead, Extrawelt, Sade, Chase and Status and more
The largest and tastiest review extravaganza out there |
Annie Ernaux: A Man's Place review - an intimate portrait, necessarily incomplete
In a memoir built on absence, France's leading writer inspects the life of her father |
Zaina Arafat: You Exist Too Much review - second-generation love addiction
Self-conscious therapeutic development cannot help but recall the past |
Small Axe: Red, White and Blue, BBC One review - sobering real-life story of police officer Leroy Logan
One man's bid to change the Metropolitan Police from the inside |
Isata Kanneh-Mason, BBCSSO, Gourlay online review - give thanks for lockdown concerts
A taste of modern America followed by sumptuous Beethoven |
What a Carve Up!, Barn Theatre online review – ingenious whodunnit
Film adaptation of Jonathan Coe’s 1994 bestseller is a postmodern masterpiece |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Trees - 50th Anniversary box set
Four-disc fantasia dedicated to the mind-blowing British folk-rockers |
Dua Lipa's Studio 2054 online - pop sensation locked into the spectacle
Does Dua Lipa's new-found musical personality come through in performance? |
Uncle Frank review - well-acted but painfully contrived
Alan Ball's film largely wastes a wonderful cast |
Clayton, Frank-Gemmill, SCO, Kuusisto online review – small but beautifully formed
Music of style and substance presented in an enticing online package |
Another Round review - delight and despair
Mads Mikkelsen stars in Thomas Vinterberg’s alcohol-fumed tragicomedy |
L'enfant et les sortilèges, VOPERA, LPO, Reynolds online – Ravel and Colette reimagined
Through the laptop screen and what the child found there, in a brilliant take on a classic |
Possessor review - death by virtual reality
Startling vision of corporate assassination from director Brandon Cronenberg |
Hillbilly Elegy review - misery in the heartland
Ron Howard's melodrama softens the message of a Trump-era memoir |
The Seven Deadly Sins, Opera North online review - viscerally thrilling
Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's indictment of capitalism in a vibrant new production |
latest in today
Reissue CDs Weekly: Scars - Author! Author!
Scars’s tour de force album Author! Author! has been out of sight for too long. Originally released in...
The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Bristol Old Vic/Kneehigh/Wise...
One of Marc Chagall’s last commissions was for a stained-...
Host review - Zoom seance triggers unspeakable consequences
Lockdowns must be good for something, right? British...
Album: The Avalanches - We Will Always Love You
After a 16-year wait for the second album from Australian...
Falling review - Viggo Mortensen's powerful directorial...
“California is for cocksuckers and flag-burners. Did they know you were a fag in the army?” Willis (Lance Henriksen; best known as Bishop in ...
Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester online review - r...
The Hallé have been slow off the mark, compared with...
The Dambusters, Channel 5 review - yet another telling of th...
The story of the raid on dams in Germany's Ruhr Valley by...
Album: Yungblud - Weird!
Doncaster musician Dominic Harrison – Yungblud – appeared a couple of years ago, a self-proclaimed...