Reviews
'Weird Al' Yankovic, London Palladium review - deep dive into his original songsTuesday, 21 February 2023
The most striking thing at the London Palladium for the last night of “Weird Al” Yankovic's mini-tour of the UK was the number of youngsters in the audience. I don't mean young adults, but children, who were there with their parents and even... Read more... |
Standing at the Sky's Edge, National Theatre review - razor-sharp musical with second-act woesTuesday, 21 February 2023
Buildings can hold memories, the three dimensions of space supplemented by the fourth of time. Ten years ago, I started every working week with a meeting in a room that, for decades, had been used to conduct autopsies – I felt a little chill... Read more... |
Duet for One, Orange Tree Theatre review - poignant two-hander gets an updated repriseMonday, 20 February 2023
This 1981 two-hander was opened out for a film in 1986, starring Julie Andrews no less, with all its offstage characters given screen life. Thankfully it has been shrunk back to its original dimensions, with added modern ornamentation for this... Read more... |
Dry Cleaning, Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow review - post-punk outfit say all the right wordsMonday, 20 February 2023
There is an endearing awkwardness with Dry Cleaning, despite steady success over the past three years. “Does anyone else want a wave?” asked their frontwoman Florence Shaw at one point, almost shyly, before proceeding to do just that in various... Read more... |
The Rhinegold, English National Opera review - tacky, edgy, brilliantMonday, 20 February 2023
All that glitters, titular treasure included, is dangerous childsplay in Richard Jones’s third UK staging of what Wagner called the “preliminary evening” to the three main operas of The Ring of the Nibelung. It’s nothing like the previous two, for... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 75: The Beach Boys, The Residents, Danny Goffey, Jean-Michel Jarre, black metal and Sixties psychMonday, 20 February 2023
Welcome to the first theartsdesk on Vinyl of 2023 and it’s another whopper, over 8000 words and a range of musical styles that defies genre or categorization, from the most cutting edge sounds to boxsets of golden vintage pop. Dive in!VINYL OF THE... Read more... |
Ariadne auf Naxos, Opera North review - funny and beautifully sungMonday, 20 February 2023
Rodula Gaitanou’s production of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos is a hugely entertaining treatment of an opera that brings its fair share of problems to any company, and the chief virtue of Opera North’s presentation (a co-production with... Read more... |
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania review - Marvel head into infinity and beyondSunday, 19 February 2023
We’ve now reached film 31 and Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s increasingly baroque franchise. Four years after Avengers: Endgame’s false finale, Scott Lang aka Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is still basking in his role in reversing Thanos’s... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Dave Brubeck Quartet - Debut In The Netherlands 1958Sunday, 19 February 2023
For Dave Brubeck, his Quartet’s first concert in the Netherlands was memorable. Getting to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw for the 26 February 1958 booking was difficult, possibly unfeasible. The band were travelling from Berlin, and arrived at the show a... Read more... |
Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way, Turner Contemporary review - a feedback loop of musical unionSaturday, 18 February 2023
It’s 1986, and a young Sonia Boyce (main picture) speaks to poet and sculptor, Pitika Ntuli, about the "perpetual struggle to be heard and appreciated" as a Black woman who is an artist. "I’m here, you can’t wish me away," she responds with... Read more... |
Jockstrap, Heaven review - ecstasy in underground bassFriday, 17 February 2023
Jockstrap’s crowd, in the vaults of Heaven, was always going to be beautiful and effortlessly cool. Ushered in by a ticket-check clerk sporting love bites, the dreamy sounds of the warm-up act, Pablo, filled the underground space. The audience,... Read more... |
Nostalgia review - returning to Naples after 40 yearsFriday, 17 February 2023
“He’s my best friend, a brother,” says Felice Lasco (Pierfrancesco Favino) of his childhood buddy, Oreste Spasiano (Tomasso Ragno). After 40 years away, Felice, a successful, married businessman, has returned to Naples from Cairo to see his aged... Read more... |
