First with arts reviews, news & interviews
Three Church Parables, Aurora Orchestra, Aldeburgh Festival
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
In Britten’s centenary the Aldeburgh Festival has come up with two mesmerising opera happenings. The innovation is to stage Peter Grimes on the town’s beach, a few hundred...
The Cripple of Inishmaan, Noël Coward Theatre
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
Martin McDonagh's play, which premiered in 1997, here receives its first major revival as part of Michael Grandage's star-studded first season at the Noël Coward Theatre. It's a...
Reggie Watts/Mac Lethal, Royal Festival Hall
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
The Meltdown Festival has always been a fascinating proposition, getting a living legend in their field to curate their own personal festival line-up, and present all of their...
The Route Masters: Running London's Roads/Airport Live, BBC Two
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
I bought a new car recently, but by the end of The Route Masters (***) I was feeling a powerful inclination to sell it. The film would have rung a masochistic bell with anybody...
Peter Grimes, Aldeburgh Beach
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
First things first. There are limited tickets still available for this run of Peter Grimes on Aldeburgh beach but there won’t be for long, so move fast....
Casualties: the theatre of war
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
A few days ago I found myself sat in a Finsbury Park pub talking to a man who dismantled bombs for a living, who had completed two tours in Afghanistan fighting the unending war...
Neil Young and Crazy Horse, O2 Arena
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
"Don't say it's over," wailed Neil Young at the end of "Hey Hey, My My", his raging anthem against the dying of the light...
Hard Feelings, Finborough Theatre
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Doug Lucie's signature spikiness remains intact, and then some, in the Defibrillator production of Hard Feelings, which is...
A Crisis of Brilliance, Dulwich Picture Gallery
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
The very tall, skeletal and formidable Henry Tonks (1862-1937), surgeon and anatomist, became one of the most decisive,...
The White Queen, BBC One/Agatha Christie's Marple: Caribbean Mystery, ITV
Monday, 17 June 2013
In recent times, the Middle Ages have been ghettoised on those channels you watch in pubs. Game of Thrones, and anything by...
Bracken Moor, Tricycle Theatre
Monday, 17 June 2013
In Bracken Moor Alexi Kaye Campbell inhabits similar territory to J B Priestley, whose work he admires. Like his predecessor...
10 Questions for Musician & Comedian Reggie Watts
Monday, 17 June 2013
Equal parts prodigiously talented musician, consistently funny comedian, auteur, theatre performer, free thinker and writer...
Before Midnight
Monday, 17 June 2013
Before Midnight is the third part in Richard Linklater's romantic series starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as star-...
War Requiem, Berlin Philharmoniker, Rattle, Philharmonie Berlin
Sunday, 16 June 2013
How often should a music-lover go to hear Britten’s most layered masterpiece? From personal experience, I’d say not more...
Afghan Army Girls, More 4
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Being a woman soldier in the Afghan army must rate among the world’s “least wanted” jobs, if only 14 applicants came forward...
Mayerling, Royal Ballet
Sunday, 16 June 2013
My great-grandmother used to say, "In the fall, leaves fall," meaning that as the weather gets colder, people die. The Royal...
Siegfried, Opera North
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Newcomers to this ongoing Ring cycle would be wrong to imagine that a series of semi-staged concert performances represent a...
Death in Venice, English National Opera
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Austere, beautiful, heartbreaking, streaked with genius - that goes for both Benjamin Britten’s last opera Death in Venice...
disc of the day
CD: Lloyd Cole - Standards
The spirit of the Commotions is evoked as Eighties survivor ends a long silence
film
Before Midnight
We're counting down to the witching hour in the magnificent third instalment of Richard Linklater's international love story
tv
The Route Masters: Running London's Roads/Airport Live, BBC Two
It's transport week on the BBC, with wildly mixed consequences
The White Queen, BBC One/Agatha Christie's Marple: Caribbean Mystery, ITV
Philippa Gregory gives you medievals. Agatha Christie gives you wood
new music
Reggie Watts/Mac Lethal, Royal Festival Hall
Quick-witted musical improv with a surreal twist and viral video rap join forces at Meltdown
CD: Lloyd Cole - Standards
The spirit of the Commotions is evoked as Eighties survivor ends a long silence
six of the best
Six of the best: Theatre
Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams and Mormons: a bit of everything in theartsdesk's tips
Radio Show
The Seckerson Tapes: Lucy Schaufer
A versatile American mezzo in London tells of her female-friendly debut album
classical
War Requiem, Berlin Philharmoniker, Rattle, Philharmonie Berlin
Britten's fusion of war poetry and Latin mass shouldn't be the everyday occasion it was here
Classical CDs Weekly: Britten, Poulenc, Rameau
Weighty English song, Parisian froth and French baroque music from Caracas
Ma, LSO, Tilson Thomas, Barbican Hall
A blistering finale to the LSO's triptych of 20th-century music
opera
Three Church Parables, Aurora Orchestra, Aldeburgh Festival
Another mesmerising Britten production in Suffolk for the composer's centenary
theatre
The Cripple of Inishmaan, Noël Coward Theatre
Daniel Radcliffe stars in an underpowered revival of Martin McDonagh's modern classic
Casualties: the theatre of war
Playwright Ross Ericson introduces his new play about defusing IEDs in Afghanistan
Hard Feelings, Finborough Theatre
Doug Lucie's snarky comedy-drama brings Thatcher-era Britain to the boil
visual arts
A Crisis of Brilliance, Dulwich Picture Gallery
A rich anthology of experimental British art in the years leading up to and during the First World War, plus gallery
theartsdesk in Istanbul: Art pours out of Gezi Park
Protests in Turkey have fuelled artists, musicians, bloggers and satirists
dance
theartsdesk Q&A: Ballerina Leanne Benjamin
Feisty, evergreen Royal Ballet star sums up as she prepares to retire tomorrow
Swan Lake, English National Ballet, Royal Albert Hall
In-the-round means grids and drills: only superhuman performances can rescue the maths
comedy
Reggie Watts/Mac Lethal, Royal Festival Hall
Quick-witted musical improv with a surreal twist and viral video rap join forces at Meltdown
10 Questions for Musician & Comedian Reggie Watts
The acclaimed American polymath plays Meltdown this week; first, he talks to theartsdesk
What Would Beyoncé Do?!, Soho Theatre
Luisa Omielan channels her inner bootylicious diva to sort through some relationship issues
latest comments
"Ends a long silence" is a bit of a stretch. He...
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I agree with the 95% above that this BBC...
Expected a few more episodes...led me to find...