tue 19/03/2024

theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews

Christopher Lambton
Tuesday, 19 March 2024
For the second year in a row the Royal Scottish National Orchestra chose to share its platform in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall with the young musicians of St Mary's Music School. As...
Adam Sweeting
Tuesday, 19 March 2024
President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on 14 April 1865, five days after General Robert E Lee’s surrender at Appomatox signalled the end of the American Civil War. The ensuing...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 19 March 2024
Beautiful Thing’s opening scene plays out like a sweary take on Bill Forsyth’s Gregory’s Girl, Meera Syal’s potty-mouthed PE teacher lambasting her Year 11 pupils with language...
Rachel Halliburton
Monday, 18 March 2024
It began with the tolling of a lone bell and ended in a transcendent blaze of golden light. The UK premiere of James MacMillan’s Fiat Lux – first performed in Los Angeles in 2023...
David Nice
Monday, 18 March 2024
“Based on the play by Oscar Wilde,” declared publicity on Dublin buses and buildings, reminding opera-cautious citizens that the poet whose text Richard Strauss used for his own...
Kathryn Reilly
Monday, 18 March 2024
On this, their 10th album, the melodious Mancunians started at the drum kit and built from there. This is no bad thing. The overall effect is wide-ranging, surprising and...
Peter Whelan
Sunday, 17 March 2024
There's something undeniable about the way music can weave itself into the fabric of our lives, shaping our passions and...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 17 March 2024
Crashing chords are followed by a spindly, untrammelled solo guitar. After this subsides, the singer lays out the issue: “I...
Simon Thompson
Saturday, 16 March 2024
Most concert promoters will tell you that contemporary music tends to be, to put it politely, a tricky sell, which is one of...
Adam Sweeting
Saturday, 16 March 2024
This is writer-director Warwick Thornton’s third feature film, his first since 2017's excellent Sweet Country, and it took...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 16 March 2024
 Bloch: Schelomo, Bruch: Kol Nidrei, Dohnányi: Konzertstück Tim Posner (cello), Berner Symphonieorchester/Katharina...
Mark Kidel
Saturday, 16 March 2024
Julia Holter has created a long line of albums that trade on sophisticated poetry, both lyrical and musical, and her latest...
Boyd Tonkin
Friday, 15 March 2024
Like Hamlet or Fidelio, Schubert’s Winterreise can withstand and overcome (almost) any kind of re-imagining. In the case of...
Saskia Baron
Friday, 15 March 2024
Monster is one of those films that you really shouldn’t read too much about before you see it, and if you are anything like...
David Nice
Friday, 15 March 2024
“Spring Awakenings” promised as the theme of this year’s London Handel Festival began with a big if messy vernal bouquet of...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 15 March 2024
There’s a Coen brother directing, plus a cast that includes Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Oscar nominee Colman Domingo and...
Mark Sheerin
Thursday, 14 March 2024
In a sixth-floor gallery, flooded with natural light, four paintings and a handful of works on paper compete with views...
David Nice
Thursday, 14 March 2024
Face scarred, baby murdered – both crimes committed by those closest to her – village girl Jenůfa rises again with...
Demetrios Matheou
Thursday, 14 March 2024
Is it just coincidence, or something about the post-Covid theatrical landscape, that one-person shows are becoming...
 

★★★★ HUGHES, SCO, KUUSISTO, QUEEN'S HALL, EDINBURGH Clyne shines, Grimes fragments

CLASSICAL CDS Concertantes for cello & orchestra, music for pianos, winds & solo strings

MUSIC REISSUES WEEKLY: THE MYSTIC TIDE - FRUSTRATION Sixties psychedelic punks from Long Island whose sonic assault still resonates

★★★ KIM GORDON - THE COLLECTIVE Maintaining a jagged trajectory

★★★★★ MONSTER Superbly elliptical tale of a troubled boy

★★★ HARRY CLARKE, AMBASSADORS THEATRE An entertaining curio

★★★ THE NEW BOY A mystical take on Australia's treatment of its First Peoples

★★★★ JENUFA, ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA Searing new cast in precise revival

disc of the day

Blu-ray: Beautiful Thing

Much-loved film adaptation of a classic 1990s play has aged well

tv

Manhunt, Apple TV+ review - all the President's men

Tobias Menzies and Anthony Boyle go head to head in historical crime drama

The Gentlemen, Netflix review - Guy Ritchie's further adventures in Geezerworld

Riotous assembly of toffs, gangsters, travellers, rogues and misfits

Oscars 2024: politics aplenty but few surprises as 'Oppenheimer' dominates

Christopher Nolan biopic wins big in a ceremony defined by a pink-clad Ryan Gosling and Donald Trump seeing red

film

Blu-ray: Beautiful Thing

Much-loved film adaptation of a classic 1990s play has aged well

The New Boy review - a mystical take on Australia's treatment of its First Peoples

Warwick Thornton's parable is too mysterious for its own good

Monster review - superbly elliptical tale of a troubled boy

Hirakazu Kore-eda, on top form in his native Japan, directs an intricate psychological drama

new music

Album: Elbow - Audio Vertigo

Another impressive release from the men not afraid to emote

Music Reissues Weekly: The Mystic Tide - Frustration

Sixties psychedelic punks from Long Island whose sonic assault still resonates

opera

Salome, Irish National Opera review - imaginatively charted journey to the abyss

Sinéad Campbell Wallace's corrupted princess stuns in Bruno Ravella's production

Jenůfa, English National Opera review - searing new cast in precise revival

Jennifer Davis and Susan Bullock pull out all the stops in Janáček's moving masterpiece

theartsdesk in Strasbourg: crossing the frontiers

'Lohengrin' marks a remarkable singer's arrival on Planet Wagner

theatre

Harry Clarke, Ambassadors Theatre review - an entertaining curio
Billy Crudup essays multiple characters as a fake Englishman abroad
Uncle Vanya, Orange Tree Theatre review - Chekhov served up choice
Trevor Nunn, age 84, makes a blinding return to form

dance

Swan Lake, Royal Ballet review - grand, eloquent, superb

Liam Scarlett's fine refashioning returns for a third season, and looks better than ever

First Person: Ten Years On - Flamenco guitarist Paco Peña pays tribute to his friend, the late, great Paco de Lucía

On the 10th anniversary of his death, memories of the prodigious musician who broadened the reach of flamenco into jazz and beyond

Dance for Ukraine Gala, London Palladium review - a second rich helping of international dancers

Ivan Putrov's latest gala was a satisfying mix of stars and young hopefuls

Books

Tom Chatfield: Wise Animals review - on the changing world

A compelling account of how we use technology – and how it uses us

Sheila Heti: Alphabetical Diaries review - an A-Z of inner life

Heti goes far beyond a gimmick in this work of surprising and moving insight

visual arts

Jane Harris: Ellipse, Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, Bordeaux review - ovals to the fore

Persistence and conviction in the works of the late English painter

Sargent and Fashion, Tate Britain review - portraiture as a performance

London’s elite posing dressed up to the nines

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