Emma Simmonds
Articles By Emma Simmonds
latest in today
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Screenshot%202024-10-30%20at%2017-39-09%20theartsdesk.com%20%28%40the_arts_desk%29%20%E2%80%A2%20Instagram%20photos%20and%20videos.png?itok=W02US5i5)
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
![Too clever? Leo Woodall as Ed Brooks](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Ed%20MAIN.jpg?itok=sLVXyJZ5)
An opening sequence of a drone flying over a busy street in Baghdad, followed by a huge explosion that leaves many casualties and a gaping hole...
![Veronika Jarůšková, Marek Zwiebel, Boris Giltburg, Peter Jarůšek and Šimon Truszka in a bracing encore](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/250121_PavelHaasQuartetGiltburg-2.jpg?itok=MC_LEC9Z)
Serious realisation of the seven often thorny Martinů string quartets is a major undertaking. When I spoke to Veronika Jarůšková and...
![Amelia Coburn, replete with baritone ukulele](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Amelia%20Coburn%20Brighton%204.jpg?itok=czWW-CeH)
The quandary is this. Middlesbrough singer Amelia Coburn made one of my favourite albums of last year, her debut, Between the Moon and the...
![Hungary hearts: Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones have fled 1940s Europe in ‘The Brutalist’](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/The%20Brutalist%20pic.png?itok=68AxJT_L)
There’s a moment, as we build to a climax in Brady Corbet’s first film, The Childhood of a Leader (2015), when a servant at a...
![Avante garde experimentation in FKA Twigs new album Eusexua](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/FKA%20Twigs%20Eusexua_0.jpg?itok=WhKRcVDm)
It would be really easy to get hung up on the definition for this album. Is it a new sexuality term? A holiday genre of technopop? A planet that...
![Sounding plausibly Welsh: Martin Clunes as Nathan Williams](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Clunes%20MAIN.jpg?itok=Od2Z1kmY)
If nothing else, ITV’s new thriller Out There is a fabulous advertisement for the Welsh countryside. Many scenes were shot in Brecon and...
![Alpine hero: Claes Bang in 'William Tell'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/72e3bbfb0273fdbdb92516aebc75aa19.jpg?itok=p884YQ-z)
Despite Rossini’s banger of an overture and a Looney Tunes cartoon starring Daffy Duck as William Tell, I’ll wager that few non-German-speakers...
!['There are songs that are instantly joyous, and plenty else that’s haunting, even troubling'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/cover%20Tunng%20-%20Love%20You%20All%20Over%20Again.jpg?itok=x-uS6Uny)
This is Tunng’s ninth album, their first in five years, and marks their 20th anniversary by consciously going full circle to the...
![Jurowski: thoughtful programming, impeccable preparation](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Vladimir_Jurowski_FULL_RES-5_0.jpg?itok=-rxnuufK)
When Vladimir Jurowski planned this typically unorthodox programme, he could not have known that a disaster even greater, long-term, than 9/11 was...