theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Robert Beale
Monday, 03 June 2024
When it was first announced that Mark Elder was to become music director of the Hallé, I phoned a friend who knew him well from serving on his staff at English National Opera in...
David Nice
Monday, 03 June 2024
Recreating Handel’s Egypt with a first-rate cast on the summer opera scene could have been the exclusive domain of Glyndebourne, bringing back its revival of David McVicar’s...
Tim Cumming
Monday, 03 June 2024
At 91, Willie Nelson is about to tour the US with The Outlaws, AKA Minnesota youngster Bob Dylan, 83, the even younger Robert Plant, 75, with Alison Krauss, a mere 52, and 72-year...
Nick Hasted
Sunday, 02 June 2024
The Israel-Palestine conflict aptly infuses a haunted house in Muayad Alayan’s story of layered loss. The Shapiro family home in Jerusalem which grieving British-Jewish husband...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 02 June 2024
“We hope if you like it, you'll buy it,” says Paul McCartney. It’s 4 April 1963 and The Beatles are on stage and about to perform their third single “From me to You.” It’s out in...
Adam Sweeting
Saturday, 01 June 2024
Maybe California-born Matthew Modine caught the movie bug courtesy of his father Mark, who used to manage drive-in theatres, but after bagging his first film role in John Sayles’s...
Kieron Tyler
Saturday, 01 June 2024
While some tracks on Marina Allen’s third album are country accented and a pedal steel is used a few times, it’s impossible...
Aleks Sierz
Friday, 31 May 2024
Faye is okay. Or, at least she says she’s okay. But is she really? And, if she really is, like really okay, why is she...
James Saynor
Friday, 31 May 2024
Adaptations of Henry James have often failed to click over the years. The author’s private, introspective works –...
Sarah Kent
Friday, 31 May 2024
Being a successful artist is not Judy Chicago’s primary goal. She abandoned that ambition six decades ago when the Los...
Joe Muggs
Friday, 31 May 2024
There’s a whole generation of singers who’ve risen to considerable fame on the back of the return of home-grown commercial...
Heather Neill
Thursday, 30 May 2024
Prolific playwright James Graham was born in 1982, the year Alan Bleasdale's unforgettable series was televised. From...
David Nice
Thursday, 30 May 2024
Peerless among the constellation of Irish singers making waves around the world, mezzo Paula Murrihy first dazzled London as...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 30 May 2024
It’s entirely fitting that Jake Adelstein should have a poster for All the President’s Men on the wall of his Tokyo...
Kris Nelson
Thursday, 30 May 2024
LIFT 2024 is nearly here. It’s a festival that will take you on deep and personal journeys. We’ve got shows that will catch...
Mark Kidel
Thursday, 30 May 2024
Beth Gibbons, once the voice of Portishead, and later a wonderful solo singer and songwriter, hasn’t been on stage for a...
Liz Thomson
Thursday, 30 May 2024
Hot on the heels of his Olivier Award-winning musical Standing at the Sky's Edge, comes In This City They Call You Love...
Boyd Tonkin
Wednesday, 29 May 2024
Set in a tensely polarised Roman neighbourhood, with an election in the offing and radicals scrapping with reactionaries...
Bernard Hughes
Wednesday, 29 May 2024
The concert offering at St-Martin-in-the-Fields has transformed in recent years, under Director of Music Andrew Earis. There...
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tv
theartsdesk Q&A: Matthew Modine on 'Hard Miles', 40 years in showbusiness and safer cycling
An eventful journey from 'Full Metal Jacket' to 'Oppenheimer' and 'Stranger Things'
Tokyo Vice, Series 2, BBC iPlayer review - an exciting ride that stretches credibility
The return of Jake Adelstein, ace reporter
The Beach Boys, Disney+ review - heroes and villains and good vibrations
Stylish retelling of the Beach Boys saga could use sharper teeth
film
A House in Jerusalem review - a haunted house and country
A grieving British girl gleans buried traumas in a quietly humane Middle East tale
theartsdesk Q&A: Matthew Modine on 'Hard Miles', 40 years in showbusiness and safer cycling
An eventful journey from 'Full Metal Jacket' to 'Oppenheimer' and 'Stranger Things'
The Beast review - AI takes over the job centre
A jumbled, time-hopping Henry James adaptation from Bertrand Bonello
new music
Album: Marina Allen - Eight Pointed Star
US singer-songwriter’s third album’s nod to Americana is a feint
classical
Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - a fine and fitting finale for Sir Mark
An immediately attractive new choral-orchestral work from Sir James MacMillan
Murrihy, Martineau, Wigmore Hall review - poise, transformation and rainbow colours
A great Irish mezzo and Scottish pianist rise to Berlioz and surprise in Britten
St Martin's Voices, Earis, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - music from the beginning
Young singers explore traditional and more unusual settings of biblical creation narratives
opera
Giulio Cesare, Blackwater Valley Opera Festival review - characterful, lustrous Handel on parade
An infinitely various cast compels as the splendour falls on castle walls
Tosca, Opera Holland Park review - passion and populism
1800, 1968, 2024: a smart revival makes Puccini's evergreen shocker sing again
Die Zauberflöte, Glyndebourne review - cornucopia of visual inventiveness eclipses everything else
An operatic feast for the eyes doesn't translate into conceptual satisfaction
theatre
Lie Low, Royal Court review - short sharp sliver of pain
Dublin Fringe Festival hit from 2022 comes to London’s main new writing theatre
Boys from the Blackstuff, National Theatre review - a lyrical, funny, affecting variation on a television classic
The legendary small-screen drama still resonates in a new medium
First Person: LIFT artistic director Kris Nelson on delivering the best of international theatre to the nation's capital
LIFT2024 promises a characteristically broad and bracing array of global performance
dance
The Winter's Tale, Royal Ballet review - what a story, and what a way to tell it!
A compelling case for ROH's ballet-friendly rebrand
All You Need Is Death review - a future folk horror classic
Irish folkies seek a cursed ancient song in Paul Duane's impressive fiction debut
MacMillan Celebrated, Royal Ballet review - out of mothballs, three vintage works to marvel at
Less-known pieces spanning the career of a great choreographer underline his greatness
comedy
Punt and Dennis, The Marlowe, Canterbury review - satire and sketches
Double act back on the road after a decade
DVD/Blu-ray: Billy Connolly - Big Banana Feet
The comic caught on the cusp of his fame as he tours Ireland in 1975
Clinton Baptiste, Touring review - spoof clairvoyant on great form
Character has life beyond 'Phoenix Nights'
Books
Extract: Pariah Genius by Iain Sinclair
A form-defying writer explores the troubled mindscape of a Soho photographer
Jonn Elledge: A History of the World in 47 Borders review - a view from the boundaries
Enjoyable journey through the byways of how lines on maps have shaped the modern world
Lisa Kaltenegger: Alien Earths review - a whole new world
Kaltenegger's traverses space in her thoughtful exploration of the search for life among the stars
visual arts
Judy Chicago Revelations, Serpentine Gallery review - art designed to change the world
At 84, the American pioneer is a force to be reckoned with
Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920, Tate Britain review - a triumph
Rescued from obscurity, 100 women artists prove just how good they can be
Brancusi, Pompidou Centre, Paris review - a sculptor's spiritual quest for form and essence
The Paris landmark signs off with a historic survey
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