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Wednesday, 01 October 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...
Thomas H Green
Monday, 05 May 2025
20 years on from their first appearance on record, the seventh long-player from Canadian indie-art-rock behemoths Arcade Fire comes off the back of four consecutive UK album chart...
Adam Sweeting
Sunday, 04 May 2025
The art of the conman is persuading their victim to fool themselves, which is the premise that lies at the core of this Australian drama series. Adapted by screenwriter Anya...
Pamela Jahn
Sunday, 04 May 2025
One of the most exciting new voices in Eastern European film, Déa Kulumbegashvili is not concerned with conventional shot lengths. She has been described as a director of "slow...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 04 May 2025
Sixes and Sevens is a surprise. A big one. Since leaving Siouxsie and the Banshees in September 1979, John McKay has largely been a mystery. On record, the only suggestion this...
David Nice
Saturday, 03 May 2025
Full marks to the Royal Opera for good planning: one first night knocking us all sideways with the darkest German operatic tragedy followed by another letting us off the hook with...
Helen Hawkins
Saturday, 03 May 2025
In the Stygian darkness of a bare room, a table on a low platform with a light hanging overhead starts to emerge. Then a...
Adam Sweeting
Saturday, 03 May 2025
The success of Netflix’s Drive to Survive not only provoked a viewer-stampede towards the world’s most expensive sport, but...
Graham Rickson
Friday, 02 May 2025
Jürg Frey: Voices EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble/James Weeks (Neu Records)A new CD from EXAUDI is a guaranteed treat for all...
Sarah Kent
Friday, 02 May 2025
A traditional Korean house has appeared at Tate Modern. And with its neat brickwork, beautifully carved roof beams and...
David Nice
Friday, 02 May 2025
Wagner’s universe, in the second of his Ring operas which brings semi-humans on board to challenge the gods, matches...
Sebastian Scotney
Friday, 02 May 2025
Does it spark joy? Yes, definitely...and maybe we music critics should ask the Marie Kondo question more often. London-based...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 02 May 2025
The makers of The Extraordinary Miss Flower are billing it as a “performance film”, a subspecies of the concert-movie and...
Kathryn Reilly
Friday, 02 May 2025
Purporting to be a documentary about John Lennon in the 1970s, Borrowed Time is no such thing. Instead, we have a lot of fan...
Ellie Roberts
Friday, 02 May 2025
PUP’s Who Will Look After The Dogs? is a raw and emotionally charged album that captures the band’s chaotic spirit while...
Matt Wolf
Thursday, 01 May 2025
It's both brave and bracing to welcome new voices to the West End, but sometimes one wonders if such exposure necessarily...
Amelia Coburn
Thursday, 01 May 2025
“Sandra” is one of my favourite tracks from my album Between The Moon and the Milkman which was released last year. ...
Mark Kidel
Thursday, 01 May 2025
On the eve of recording an album at Real World Studios, guitarist Adrian Utley and the American trumpet player Eddie...
Liz Thomson
Thursday, 01 May 2025
Wow, can it really be 40 years since Solitude Standing, the second studio album by Suzanne Vega who put the 1980s folk...
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Album: Arcade Fire - Pink Elephant
Seventh from Canadian stadium-slayers contains enough juice to convince
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tv
Fake, ITV1 review - be careful what you wish for
Australian drama probes the terrors of middle-aged matchmaking
Formula E: Driver, Prime Video review - inside the world's first zero-carbon sport
F1's electric baby brother get its own documentary series
Flintoff, Disney+ review - tumultuous life and times of the great all-rounder
John Dower's documentary is gritty, gruelling and uplifting
film
theartsdesk Q&A: film director Déa Kulumbegashvili on her startling second feature, 'April'
The Georgian filmmaker talks about her award-winning abortion drama, motherhood and her relationship with the unknown
The Extraordinary Miss Flower review - odd mashup of music, dance, film and spoken word
A cache of love letters inspires samey songs and not enough wonder
Borrowed Time: Lennon's Last Decade review - how the great man spent his thirties
The former Beatle's final years discussed and dissected
new music
Album: Arcade Fire - Pink Elephant
Seventh from Canadian stadium-slayers contains enough juice to convince
Music Reissues Weekly: John McKay - Sixes and Sevens
The former Siouxsie and the Banshees guitarist digs through his archive and finds treasure
Georgia Mancio, Alan Broadbent, Pizza Express Dean Street review - songs beautifully crafted
Gloriously personal expression
classical
Classical CDs: Chinese poetry, rollercoasters and old bookshops
Swiss contemporary music, plus two cello albums and a versatile clarinettist remembered
La Serenissima, Wigmore Hall review - a convivial guide to 18th century Bologna
This showcase for baroque trumpets was riveting throughout
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Isata Kanneh-Mason, Wigmore Hall review - family fun, fire and finesse
Intimacy and empathy in a varied mixture from the star siblings
opera
Pimpinone, Royal Opera in the Linbury Theatre review - farce with a sting in its tail
Telemann’s comic opera hits the mark thanks to two fine, well-directed young singers
Die Walküre, Royal Opera review - total music drama
Kosky, Pappano and their singers soar on both wings of Wagner’s double tragedy
theatre
Krapp's Last Tape, Barbican review - playing with the lighter side of Beckett's gloom
The Irish actor Stephen Rea is a silent-movie Krapp to treasure
My Master Builder, Wyndham's Theatre review - Ewan McGregor headlines stillborn Ibsen riff
Starry new writing premiere struggles to connect
Dealer's Choice, Donmar Warehouse review - fresh take on a classic about male self-destruction
An ideal revisiting of Patrick Marber's play about risking all to move ahead
dance
The Forsythe Programme, English National Ballet review - brains, beauty and bravura
Once again the veteran choreographer and maverick William Forsythe raises ENB's game
Sad Book, Hackney Empire review - What we feel, what we show, and the many ways we deal with sadness
A book about navigating grief feeds into unusual and compelling dance theatre
comedy
Greg Davies, Brighton Dome review - chocolate bars and errant bumholes
Taskmaster's first tour in seven years is a joy
Marcus Brigstocke, Touring review - modern manhood laid bare
Observations on what it is to be a bloke today
Books
Zsuzsanna Gahse: Mountainish review - seeking refuge
Notes on danger and dialogue in the shadow of the Swiss Alps
Patrick McGilligan: Woody Allen - A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham review - New York stories
Fair-minded Woody Allen biography covers all bases
visual arts
Do Ho Suh: Walk the House, Tate Modern review - memories are made of this
Home sweet home preserved as exquisite replicas
Ed Atkins, Tate Britain review - hiding behind computer generated doppelgängers
Emotions too raw to explore
latest comments
Seen it last night in NYC, was a bit of a let...
I think the series portrays a parallel vision...
Corrected, with thanks.
Yep. It's an incredible album.
Hi Robert,If I may make a correction to your...
the review doesn't match the score. you only have...
This rock solid testimony from his other son...
Tripla means Treble in hungarian, Three is Három...