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theartsdesk |
We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts lovers and professionals alike – but the…
mark.kidel |
My musical year isn’t primarily made up of albums – there are so many other ways of enjoying “New Music” – not to mention the classical which I follow too. Bon Iver’s SABLE fABLE…
Demetrios Matheou |
A leftfield, Tony-winning phenomenon on Broadway, Cole Escola’s comedy comes to London very much living up to the hype. This is a gloriously eccentric, rude, riotous marvel –…
Jenny Gilbert |
Is there a neuroscientist in the house? I need a latterday Oliver Sacks to tell me about earworms, specifically earworms issuing from the music of Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky. …
Gary Naylor |
In a warehouse, Tube trains rumbling below, Noah, his sister Tamara and his (Gentile) girlfriend Maud, live in a disused warehouse space, a North London simulacrum of a kibbutz,…
Tim Cumming |
Mark Rothko’s colour field paintings invite contemplation, reflection, quietude, association, and in British, Irish and Scottish folk this year, that feeling of an open field, a…
Helen Hawkins
If your heart sinks every time a Shakespeare funny-man enters, here comes the RSC to put an unforced grin on your face. Its latest Feste is the real deal: an emcee with true…
Rachel Halliburton
“My goal was to take the Messiah as if it had been written yesterday,” the conductor and eminent French harpsichordist Christophe Rousset told Tom Service on Radio 3 on Saturday…
Helen Hawkins
With teasing timing, the latest revival of a Tom Stoppard play at the Hampstead Theatre arrived just hours after his funeral, a weird echo of his maxim, “Every exit is an entry…
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHManduria Bite Me (Wild Honey)
Image
The debut from Milan punkers Manduria is a six-tracker haemorrhaging rock…
Gary Naylor
Bat away your lurgy, stop that coffin’ and get up to Finsbury Park for a laugh laden, ballad blitzing, sensational spoof starring the toothsome Transylvanian. If that sentence is…
Thomas H. Green
Yes, I know. Maybe everything bitched about them is true; an eye-watering marketing push, cynically calculated, monied, etc. Maybe it is not. I’ve no real idea.But, but, but, the…
Gary Naylor
Wonder is a word that is used too often in theatre, somewhat emptied of meaning by marketing’s emasculating of language. It’s used even less honestly by critics - we’ve seen too…
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, O2 Academy, Glasgow review - revisiting the past produces mixed results
Jonathan Geddes
Towards the end of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's run-through of their old album Howl, bassist Robert Levon Been told the crowd the "pain was nearly over". By BRMC standards that's…
graham.rickson
Family crises and relationship breakdowns are familiar subjects for films to tackle. Both are central to Aribam Syam Sharma’s 1990 feature Ishanou (The Chosen One), where divine…
Markie Robson-Scott
Chinese-American director Bing Liu’s first feature – his Minding the Gap, a wonderful documentary about himself and his skateboarding buddies in Illinois, was Oscar-nominated in…
joe.muggs
One of this year’s best music books, Songs in the Key of MP3 by Liam Inscoe-Jones, paints a picture of musicians of the “streaming era” having a different relationship to the past…
Kieron Tyler
Heard now, 50 years after its release, Tangerine Dream’s Rubycon sounds like what it became: part of the musical template for Jean-Michel Jarre’s 1976 international breakthrough…
Adam Sweeting
This follow-up to 2022’s Man vs Bee finds Rowan Atkinson reprising the role of Trevor Bingley, a bumbling no-hoper who is somehow still at large in the community. He’s now…
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Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
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tv
Where's Edmund Blackadder when you need him?
Jeremy Renner keeps chaos at bay in Taylor Sheridan's traumatic crime drama
Vintage documentary series boosted by sound and vision upgrades
film
Bing Liu directs a lukewarm adaptation of Atticus Lish's novel
Underwhelming parody of ‘Downton Abbey’ and its ilk
new music
One among a new wave of folk artists exploring their music's outer limits
A seasonal slant on the most wide-ranging record reviews in the universe
classical
Christopher Rousset brought bold stripes of colour to his interpretation
Performance combines the best of two different approaches
opera
Emily D'Angelo shines as Handel's impetuous, besotted protagonist
Playing from strength in a game where the Royal Northern has all the cards
Best of all possible casts fill every moment of Christopher Alden’s Handel cornucopia
theatre
Rising star Mason Alexander Park excels in this Tony Award-winning comedy
Ambitious but tangled examination of British Jewish identity in troubled times
The “Shakespeare laugh” has no place in this refreshingly wacko Illyria
dance
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
On its second time out, ENB's production is a winner where it counts
A strong revival for this stage adaptation of a British film classic
comedy
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Reunion of sketch show's creators
Storytelling that playfully wrongfoots the audience
books
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Bennett’s virtuosic prose returns to ponder intimacy, but treads some old ground
Broad and idiosyncratic survey of classical music is insightful but slightly indigestible
visual arts
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
The sky’s the thing
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