theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Rachel Halliburton
Thursday, 25 April 2024
The French cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca confesses that – like so many classical musicians – he was at a loss during lockdown as to how to develop his musical career. Then, at...
Joe Muggs
Thursday, 25 April 2024
This album came with an absolutely enormous promo campaign. As well as actual advertising there were “Audience With…” events, and specials on BBC radio and TV – the latter an...
Markie Robson-Scott
Wednesday, 24 April 2024
In director Pat Collins’s lyrical adaptation of John McGahern’s last novel, with cinematography by Richard Kendrick, the landscape is perhaps the most important character – though...
David Nice
Wednesday, 24 April 2024
Advice to young musicians, as given at several “how to market your career” seminars: don’t begin a biography with “one of the finest xxxs of his/her/their generation”. From my...
Sarah Kent
Wednesday, 24 April 2024
Stephen is the first feature film by multi-media artist Melanie Manchot and it’s the best debut film I’ve seen since Steve McQueen’s Hunger. It’s gripping from the first frame to...
Guy Oddy
Wednesday, 24 April 2024
Despite its title, Mdou Moctar’s new album is no slow-paced mournful dirge. In fact, it is louder, faster and more overtly political than any of his band’s previous discs – not so...
Helen Hawkins
Tuesday, 23 April 2024
The first season of Blue Nights was so close to police procedural perfection, it would be hard for season two to reach the...
Mark Kidel
Tuesday, 23 April 2024
Sabine Devieilhe, as with many other great sopranos, elicits much fan worship, with no less than three encores at her recent...
Bernard Hughes
Tuesday, 23 April 2024
In A History of the World in 47 Borders, Jonn Elledge takes an ostensibly dry subject – how maps and boundaries have shaped...
Harry Thorfinn-George
Tuesday, 23 April 2024
There’s a scene in Priscilla where Elvis stands above his wife, who is scrambling to put her clothes in a suitcase....
Robert Beale
Monday, 22 April 2024
Billed as a “Viennese Whirl”, this programme showed that there are different kinds of music that may be known to the...
Helen Hawkins
Monday, 22 April 2024
What would happen if a notorious misogynist actually fell in love? With a glacial Danish librarian? And decided his best...
Sebastian Scotney
Monday, 22 April 2024
The previous solo piano solo album from Fred Hersch, one of the world’s great jazz pianists, was called Songs from Home,...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 21 April 2024
Three years ago, the release of Till Another Time 1988-1996 generated a thumbs up. A compilation of recordings by the...
Aleks Sierz
Saturday, 20 April 2024
“He do the police in different voices.” If ever one phrase summed up a work of fiction, and the art of its writer, then...
David Nice
Saturday, 20 April 2024
Anyone who’d booked to hear soprano Sally Matthews or to witness the rapid progress of conductor Daniele Rustioni – the...
Cheri Amour
Saturday, 20 April 2024
For most people’s 40th birthday celebrations, they might get a few friends together, rustle up a cake, and toast to another...
Sarah Kent
Saturday, 20 April 2024
The first photograph was taken nearly 200 years ago in France by Joseph Niépce, and the first picture of a person was taken...
Ellie Roberts
Saturday, 20 April 2024
Taylor Swift’s unfathomable ability to articulate human emotion shines as brightly as ever in her latest double album The...
disc of the day
Album: Pet Shop Boys - Nonetheless
Longing, love and longevity as the duo resolutely refuse retirement
tv
Blue Lights Series 2, BBC One review - still our best cop show despite a slacker structure
The engaging Belfast cops are less tightly focused this time around
Baby Reindeer, Netflix review - a misery memoir disturbingly presented
Richard Gadd's double traumas are a difficult watch but ultimately inspiring
Anthracite, Netflix review - murderous mysteries in the French Alps
Who can unravel the ghastly secrets of the town of Lévionna?
film
That They May Face The Rising Sun review - lyrical adaptation of John McGahern's novel
Pat Collins extracts the magic of country life in the west of Ireland in his third feature film
Stephen review - a breathtakingly good first feature by a multi-media artist
Melanie Manchot's debut is strikingly intelligent and compelling
new music
Album: Pet Shop Boys - Nonetheless
Longing, love and longevity as the duo resolutely refuse retirement
classical
Christian Pierre La Marca, Yaman Okur, St Martin-in-The-Fields review - engagingly subversive pairing falls short
A collaboration between a cellist and a breakdancer doesn't achieve lift off
Ridout, Włoszczowska, Crawford, Lai, Posner, Wigmore Hall review - electrifying teamwork
High-voltage Mozart and Schoenberg, blended Brahms, in a fascinating programme
Sabine Devieilhe, Mathieu Pordoy, Wigmore Hall review - enchantment in Mozart and Strauss
Leading French soprano shines beyond diva excess
opera
Simon Boccanegra, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - thrilling, magnificent exploration
Verdi’s original version of the opera brought to exciting life
Aci by the River, London Handel Festival, Trinity Buoy Wharf Lighthouse review - myths for the #MeToo age
Star singers shine in a Handel rarity
Carmen, Royal Opera review - strong women, no sexual chemistry and little stage focus
Damiano Michieletto's new production of Bizet’s masterpiece is surprisingly invertebrate
theatre
Banging Denmark, Finborough Theatre review - lively but confusing comedy of modern manners
Superb cast deliver Van Badham's anti-incel barbs and feminist wit with gusto
London Tide, National Theatre review - haunting moody river blues
New play-with-songs version of Dickens’s 'Our Mutual Friend' is a panoramic Victori-noir
Machinal, The Old Vic review - note-perfect pity and terror
Sophie Treadwell's 1928 hard hitter gets full musical and choreographic treatment
dance
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
Carmen, English National Ballet review - lots of energy, even violence, but nothing new to say
Johan Inger's take on Carmen tries but fails to make a point about male violence
comedy
Jonathan Pie, Duke of York's Theatre review - spoof political reporter takes no prisoners
Tom Walker in a bravura display
Spencer Jones: Making Friends, Soho Theatre review - award-winning comedian mines his post-lockdown escape to the country
If big chickens scare you, this is your thing!
Six Chick Flicks, Leicester Square Theatre review - funny, frenetic and feminist spoof
Whip-smart parody of the genre
Books
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
Heather McCalden: The Observable Universe review - reflections from a damaged life
An artist pens a genre-spanning work of tender inconclusiveness
visual arts
Stephen review - a breathtakingly good first feature by a multi-media artist
Melanie Manchot's debut is strikingly intelligent and compelling
Fantastic Machine review - photography's story from one camera to 45 billion
Love it or hate it, the photographic image has ensnared us all
Yinka Shonibare: Suspended States, Serpentine Gallery review - pure delight
Weighty subject matter treated with the lightest of touch
latest comments
Couldn't agree more. THIS is the one to see to...
I watched it yesterday and it made feel like "Oh...
I saw this today at The Curve, why any theatre...
Y'all be giving out 100's like hotcakes, do y'all...
Seen in Oxford 9th April. I agree entirely...
Gee thanks, Richard... but the truth is, only...
I tried to warn you...
The Talented Ms Hawkins. You were 'wasted' all...