First with arts reviews, news & interviews
Classical CDs Weekly: Schumann, Sibelius, Maria Schneider
Saturday, 18 May 2013
Schumann and his Daughters Florian Uhlig (piano) (Hänssler Classic)Hearing this fifth volume in the young German pianist Florian Uhlig’s ongoing Schumann series made me want...
Read more...Rock ‘n’ Roll Britannia, BBC Four
Friday, 17 May 2013
From being “a strange facsimile of the original” to generating the “first British record made by people who are 100 per cent convinced that they doing the right thing”, Rock ‘n’...
Read more...Bullet Catch, Spiegeltent, Brighton
Friday, 17 May 2013
Magicians’ online forums are seething at Bullet Catch’s host and writer-director, the Scottish actor and magician Rob Drummond. This is because at one point in the show he...
Read more...Propaganda: Power and Persuasion, British Library
Friday, 17 May 2013
Every time you turn a corner, he’s there, on yet another monitor. Either the exhibition curators have a sense of humour, or Alastair Campbell really is the last word on propaganda...
Read more...The Victorian in the Wall, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs
Friday, 17 May 2013
The past: it’s etched into the fabric not just of our lives, but of the architecture that surrounds us – the streets we tread, the buildings where we work or make our homes. In...
Read more...The Stoker
Friday, 17 May 2013
Where there’s a stoker there must be a furnace, and this being Russian director Alexei Balabanov’s latest story from St Petersburg’s gangster 1990s, as well as heating some snow-...
Read more...Carmageddon
Friday, 17 May 2013
Controversy is a fickle mistress. When Carmageddon first appeared on PC in 1997, publishers Interplay were forced to cut its...
The Great Gatsby
Thursday, 16 May 2013
The mothership has landed. After a year or so of countless stage adaptations ranging from a recitation of the novel in its...
Albert Herring, Opera North
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Staging Britten’s third opera in the round in a small performance space of the Howard Assembly Room makes complete sense....
Knee Deep, Theatre Royal, Brighton
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Knee Deep, the show by four-person Brisbane acrobatic troupe Casus, is only an hour long but packs more eye-popping antics...
These Shining Lives, Park Theatre
Thursday, 16 May 2013
North London has a splendid new theatre, The Park, whose £2.5 million existence – without a penny of government subsidy – is...
The Pirates of Penzance, Scottish Opera, Theatre Royal, Glasgow
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Of all the Savoy operas, this merry clash of pirates, policemen and a Major-General flanked by an entire chorus of loving...
Nina Conti, Soho Theatre
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Ventriloquism, once a staple of music hall and variety theatre, has rather gone out of fashion. More mature readers - or...
Tomorrow's World, ICA
Thursday, 16 May 2013
The ICA was the perfect location for the UK debut of hotly tipped new duo Tomorrow’s World, consisting of Air’s Jean-Benoit...
Frankie, BBC One
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Introductions, eh? When you make someone's acquaintance for the first time, you can never really tell if they’re going to...
The Leopard: 50 years on from Cannes
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
It took Sicilian aristocrat Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, melancholy last scion of a never very reproductive family, a...
Public Enemy, Young Vic
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Everything seems so free and easy, so do-as-you-darn-well-pleasey, in the Stockmanns’ fjord-view model home. Cheery friends...
The Fall, BBC Two
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
You have to wonder if there any alternative themes permitted in TV drama apart from murder (preferably multiple, committed...
film
The Great Gatsby
Baz Luhrmann's Fitzgerald-spawned epic is busy and brash and big - but great? No, except for Leo
tv
Rock ‘n’ Roll Britannia, BBC Four
The entertaining tale of the protracted birth of a British rock scene which took America on at its own game
new music
Rock ‘n’ Roll Britannia, BBC Four
The entertaining tale of the protracted birth of a British rock scene which took America on at its own game
six of the best
Six of the best: Theatre
Shakespeare, Peter Nichols 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
Classical CDs Weekly: Schumann, Sibelius, Maria Schneider
Child-centred pianism, rugged orchestral music and an enjoyable disc of contemporary songs
L'Allegro, Il Penseroso ed il Moderato, St John's Smith Square
A joyful and accomplished opening to this year's Lufthansa Baroque Festival
Classical CDs Weekly, Grainger, Mahler, Piazzolla
Rousing Antipodean choral music, a downbeat symphony and lots of tangos
opera
The Pirates of Penzance, Scottish Opera, Theatre Royal, Glasgow
Gilbert and Sullivan need a lighter director's touch in this musically strong new production
Wozzeck, English National Opera
New production of Berg's masterpiece is as upsetting as it is thrilling
theatre
Bullet Catch, Spiegeltent, Brighton
The classic shock trick provides the core for a surprisingly philosophical show
The Victorian in the Wall, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs
Will Adamsdale's new musical comedy-drama is touching, quirky and deliciously daft
visual arts
Propaganda: Power and Persuasion, British Library
A thought-provoking exhibition looking at ways in which the state seeks to wield its influence
Leon Kossoff: London Landscapes, Annely Juda Fine Art
A deeply affecting survey of an artist who captures a sense of London as a living, breathing organism
dance
An Evening for Hospices of Hope, Sadler's Wells Theatre
Nine leading men answer the call to ballerina Alina Cojocaru's gala
10 Questions for Ballerina Alina Cojocaru
The Royal Ballet prima ballerina on what gives meaning to her brilliant career
Hofesh Shechter/ Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Puz/zle, Sadler's Wells
Two big contemporary dance names - one pleases himself, the other pleases his sponsors
comedy
Daniel Kitson, Theatre Royal, Brighton
Comedian who eschews the usual routes to fame proves to be both incisive and decidedly different
gaming
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
The game of 2012 gets a 1980s action make-over in this both dumb and smart expansion
latest comments
It sounds like AIR met Alan Parsons in an old...
please will there be a dvd release@
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I've heard many positive things about...
Worst BBC medical show ever.Frankie was an insult...