Updated daily with arts reviews, news & interviews
John Martyn, Three-Year Wake
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Exactly three years ago, late in the morning of 29 January, 2009, the news began to circulate that John Martyn had died at the age of 60. I spent the following 24 hours or so...
Read more...theartsdesk in Paris: The Oldest Film Star of All
Sunday, 29 January 2012
The news that work is to begin in February on a major renovation of the 122-year-old Eiffel Tower reminds us that no other monument in the world, including the Statue of Liberty,...
Read more...Alexei Sayle, Soho Theatre
Sunday, 29 January 2012
It has been 16 years since Alexei Sayle last performed as a stand-up, save the very occasional charity gig, so there was a proper sense of occasion at the Soho Theatre when he...
Read more...Soweto Kinch, Kings Place
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Soweto Kinch's set last night as part of the eXplorations mini-series featured gluttony, envy and a host of other vices. No, not A Life in the Day of an Investment...
Read more...How the Brits Rocked America: Go West, BBC Four
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Before The Beatles touched down there in 1964, British pop was barely a concern for America. The first in this three-part series took The Beatles arrival as the year zero for...
Read more...House of Tolerance
Saturday, 28 January 2012
In his previous films, the French director Bernardo Bonello has demonstrated a non-judgemental affinity for pornographers, prostitutes, and other transgressors. In his latest,...
Read more...Men in Motion, Sadler's Wells Theatre
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Sergei Polunin’s flight this week from the Royal Ballet just as he rises to the pinnacle made last night's Sadler's Wells...
The House of Bernarda Alba, Almeida Theatre
Saturday, 28 January 2012
No one can exactly accuse Federico Garcia Lorca's 1936 play of falling into neglect. From Howard Davies's National Theatre...
Classical CDs Weekly: Handel, Rachmaninov, Andy Findon
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Handel: Agrippina Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi)Handel’s early opera appears in a new...
Shallow Slumber, Soho Theatre
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Write what you know, the cliché goes, and in his new drama the playwright Chris Lee draws on his day job as a social worker...
Patience (After Sebald)
Friday, 27 January 2012
Diehard Sebaldians may seek to retrace the footsteps that formed the basis of WG Sebald’s meditative masterpiece The Rings...
We'll Take Manhattan, BBC Four
Friday, 27 January 2012
The Beatles’s arrival on US TV screens in February 1964 is usually recognised as the beginning of the British Invasion of...
Manchester Rising: Celebrating the City's Vibrant Club Scene
Friday, 27 January 2012
I first heard Zed Bias's Biasonic Hot Sauce – Birth of the Nanocloud last autumn. He may have been one of the key players in...
theartsdesk Q&A: Opera Singer Sir Thomas Allen
Thursday, 26 January 2012
The landmarks continue to mount for Sir Thomas Allen (b. 1944). Awarded the CBE 22 years ago and knighted a decade later,...
Woody at 100, Celtic Connections, Glasgow
Thursday, 26 January 2012
It would be easy to begin with a reflection on how little the world has changed in the 100 years since the birth of Woody...
Jane McAdam Freud: Lucian Freud My Father, Freud Museum
Thursday, 26 January 2012
In one small room of the Freud Museum, which was once the home of Sigmund in the last year of his life, are the works Jane...
The Sea Plays, Old Vic Tunnels
Thursday, 26 January 2012
The Old Vic Tunnels would seem to be the perfect place to set three of Eugene O’Neill’s three earliest plays about the sea,...
Fleisher, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall
Thursday, 26 January 2012
The London Philharmonic’s current festival – Prokofiev: Man of the People? – is all about the question mark. While the...
disc of the day
CD: Ringo Starr - Ringo 2012
If The Wombles had made this it would likely raise a smile despite its lame, lazy nostalgic guitar pop. It even goes as far as to include a feeble version of seminal skiffle song "Rock Island Line"....
buzz box
It’s not out until 8 June but fan excitement levels are...
When the London theatre critics gathered to hand out their...
Although the title of this new DVD box set was a given...
tv
How the Brits Rocked America: Go West, BBC Four
Fun but flawed stroll through British pop's Sixties' invasion of America
We'll Take Manhattan, BBC Four
Exasperating attempt to redefine America’s special relationship with Sixties' Britain
film
theartsdesk in Paris: The Oldest Film Star of All
As it prepares for a facelift, we celebrate France's most venerable movie star of all
House of Tolerance
An ornate depiction of Belle Epoque brothel life is betrayed by a spasm of misogyny
Patience (After Sebald)
Film tribute to writer WG Sebald is visually evocative but veers towards trite hagiography
classical
Classical CDs Weekly: Handel, Rachmaninov, Andy Findon
An Italian opera, bittersweet late Rachmaninov and a flautist doubling up on baritone sax
Fleisher, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal Festival Hall
Prokofiev festival finds showmanship if not soul in the composer's ballet music
Blaumane, Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra, Jurowski, Royal College of Music
The problem of Prokofiev gamely addressed but never solved
opera
theartsdesk Q&A: Opera Singer Sir Thomas Allen
This week the great lyric baritone celebrates his 40th anniversary role at Covent Garden as Don Alfonso
Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Opera North
Neat direction and outstanding singing ensure that Albery's Handel succeeds
new music
Soweto Kinch, Kings Place
A jazz/hip-hop version of the Seven Deadly Sins? With dance? Paging Soweto Kinch
How the Brits Rocked America: Go West, BBC Four
Fun but flawed stroll through British pop's Sixties' invasion of America
theatre
The House of Bernarda Alba, Almeida Theatre
Shohreh Aghdashloo moves "House" in onetime Oscar nominee's UK stage debut
Shallow Slumber, Soho Theatre
Chris Lee’s play about a child murder is brilliantly acted but under-explained
visual arts
Jane McAdam Freud: Lucian Freud My Father, Freud Museum
Daughter's portrayal of her father during his last few months produces powerful and tender work
theartsdesk Debate: But What Does It Mean? + Can Art Still Shock?
Our art critic Fisun Güner chairs a debate on art's shock value and purpose at the London Art Fair
comedy
Alexei Sayle, Soho Theatre
Alternative comedy's greatest makes a very welcome return to stand-up as an MC
The One Griff Rhys Jones, BBC One
Sketchy return to light entertainment by a comedian better known for cagoule work
dance
Men in Motion, Sadler's Wells Theatre
Men in emotion a more apt title as Royal Ballet star escapee takes his first steps off the leash
Door left ajar for Royal Ballet star who quit
Covent Garden remains supportive over sudden resignation of Sergei Polunin, superstar in the making
Draft Works, Royal Ballet, Linbury Studio
What's new, what's hot? From dancing cowboys to neoclassical beauty in one easy leap
most read just now
How the Brits Rocked America: Go West, BBC Four
Fun but flawed stroll through British pop's Sixties' invasion of...
Men in Motion, Sadler's Wells Theatre
Men in emotion a more apt title as Royal Ballet star escapee takes his firs...
Manchester Rising: Celebrating the City's Vib...
A look at the key players threatening to break out of a thriving local encl...
latest comments
flagyl 8-O topamax tovems
What is the last track of Ep.4? The track goes from the very last scene to over the credits. Some of the lyrics are 'Tear this...
It's really exciting to get a new album from Leonard Cohen. I also love that other artists are covering his songs...Cold War Kids...
So, on the basis of this exquisitely written review and the comments thus far, we can glean the following: while the film is a...
You're right. But there is a hallowed Russian tradition of sudden unforeseen non-shows of billed artists - as Les Ballets...
Really, one of the most coherent and informative reviews of any performing art— that I've ever read. This whole Putrov/Polunin...
Dear Ismene, Could you please explain your stereotypical phrase "the hallowed Russian tradition"? It seems you are not aware of...
Do these dancers not have contracts?