Reviews
Music Reissues Weekly: Kraftwerk - Autobahn at 50Sunday, 02 March 2025
“German space rock group is already shooting up the charts with their debut US LP. One of few continental groups able to make this musical mode attractive in the US.” That, in full, in its 1 March 1975 issue, was US music business paper Billboard’s... Read more... |
Help to give theartsdesk a future!Saturday, 01 March 2025
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.It followed some hectic and intensive months when a disparate and eclectic team of arts and culture writers went ahead with an ambitious plan – to... Read more... |
Mahan Esfahani, Wigmore Hall review - shimmering poise and radical brillianceSaturday, 01 March 2025
To watch Mahan Esfahani play the harpsichord is to watch a philosopher at work. While there’s often playfulness and shimmering levity you can feel the thought behind each note. The Iranian-American’s passion for the harpsichord began when he was... Read more... |
Jopy/Lemonsuckr/King of May, Green Door Store, Brighton review - exhilarating showcase for new young guitar bandsFriday, 28 February 2025
There’s something exhilarating about seeing bands right at the very, very dawn of their careers. Will they be headlining the Houston Astrodome in five years’ time or working in chip shops? It’s all to play for. But it’s right now that counts. Of... Read more... |
Gromes, Hallé, Chauhan, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - new concerto and music of triumphFriday, 28 February 2025
A cello concerto received its UK premiere in Manchester last night – almost 100 years after it was written. It’s by Maria Herz, a German-Jewish composer who had to leave her native land in the 1930s and whose work has remained almost unknown until... Read more... |
Bergerac, U&Drama review - the Jersey 'tec is born again after 34 yearsFriday, 28 February 2025
They stopped making the BBC’s original Bergerac in 1991, so you can hardly complain that this reboot is premature. John Nettles became closely identified with the titular detective Jim Bergerac before he decamped to Midsomer, murder capital of the... Read more... |
A Knock on the Roof, Royal Court review - poignant account of living under terrorFriday, 28 February 2025
The war in Gaza has been going since 7 October 2023 – that’s about 15 months. But it’s strangely absent from British stages. Of course, it’s a divisive issue, a difficult issue, a painful issue – but isn’t that what contemporary... Read more... |
The Last Showgirl review - Pamela Anderson stars as a middle-aged Vegas dancerFriday, 28 February 2025
Shelly (Pamela Anderson) is a dancer. She’s been with Le Razzle Dazzle, an outdated Las Vegas show that’s full of “breasts, rhinestones and joy”, in her words, for 30 years. And now it’s closing. Where can she go, at the age of 57?The third feature... Read more... |
The Score, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - curious beast of a play fails to engageFriday, 28 February 2025
Why is it so hard to write a decent play about Bach? Maybe, in part, because there are no words that can express anything as eloquently as his music did – about life and death, pain and transcendence, wretchedness or rapture at the simplest aspects... Read more... |
The Ferryman, Gaiety Theatre, Dublin review - Jez Butterworth's Northern Irish epic comes close to homeThursday, 27 February 2025
Dublin theatregoers have been inundated with Irish family gatherings concealing secrets or half-buried sorrows, mixing “bog gothic” with very real horrors. Clearly they’re willing to try again with Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman, because its run has... Read more... |
Helen Charlston, Sholto Kynoch, Temple Church review - fine singing, powerful stage presenceThursday, 27 February 2025
Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston just gets better and better, both as singer and as actor. Last night’s recital at Temple Church had an unusual and wide-ranging programme – consisting of a first half hopping through the centuries, followed by a... Read more... |
Ridout, 12 Ensemble, Wigmore Hall review - brilliant Britten and bombastic BrahmsThursday, 27 February 2025
Last night was the first time I had heard the 12 Ensemble, a string group currently Artist-in-Residence at the Wigmore Hall, and I was very impressed, both by the standard of the playing and the enterprising programming. This gave regular audience-... Read more... |
