Reviews
Lammermuir Festival 2017 review - rich and deeply rewarding
Tuesday, 26 September 2017
Increasingly, the Lammermuir Festival is – one audience member whispered conspiratorially to me – what East Lothian music lovers are switching to alongside the Edinburgh International Festival. It’s insidious to compare, of course – but still, you can see the attraction.
The Child in Time, BBC One review - lost in translation
Monday, 25 September 2017
Apparently this is the first time an Ian McEwan novel has been dramatised for television, but whether The Child in Time was the best choice for that singular honour is open to question.
Oedipe, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - Enescu's...
Monday, 25 September 2017
It’s official: Romanian master George Enescu’s four-act Greek epic lives and breathes as a work of transcendent genius. It took last year’s Royal...
theartsdesk on Vinyl 32: OMD, Twin Peaks, Bicep,...
Monday, 25 September 2017
September and October see a deluge of new releases. Everybody and their aunt puts out an album as autumn hits, so theartsdesk on Vinyl appears this...
BBCPO, Mena, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review...
Monday, 25 September 2017
Juanjo Mena memorably began his tenure as chief conductor at the BBC Philharmonic with a Mahler symphony (the Second), and chose to enter his seventh...
Roddy Doyle: Smile review - return of the repressed
A Dublin journey through memory leads down into buried trauma |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Ducks Deluxe
The pub rocker's albums resurface to raise questions about whether 1977 was the year of punk |
Claire Tomalin: A Life of My Own review - the biographer on herself
A life in literature, literature in life - a story of blessings as well as sadness |
On Body and Soul review - terrible beauty, and beasts
Slaughterhouse love: this year's Berlinale Golden Bear winner tells a wintry tale |
Jasper Johns, Royal Academy review - a master of 50 shades
'Something resembling truth': the master mark-maker transforms the familiar into the exotic |
Wings, Young Vic review - Juliet Stevenson goes high and low
Arthur Kopit's poetic drama about post-stroke aphasia and facing up to death astounds |
The Tallis Scholars, Phillips, Cadogan Hall review - intimacy in late Renaissance music
A diverse and vibrant tour of Italian choral music |
Ramona Tells Jim, Bush Theatre, review – kooky, teenage heartbreak
Heartwarming new play about young love is good fun, if a bit slender |
Reger Cello Suites, Richard Harwood, Malling Abbey review - Bach with a dash of acid
A revelation of solo-cello masterpieces resounds in a fascinating convent church |
Stravinsky Ballets, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - the big three burn with focused energy
Perfect teamwork in miracles of song, rhythm and colour |
Basquiat: Boom for Real, Barbican review - the myth explored
Appraising the graffiti artist whose paintings fetch over $100 million at auction |
Trouble in Mind, The Print Room review - Tanya Moodie is a treat to watch
Alice Childress’s groundbreaking 1955 drama played with panache |
Akram Khan's Giselle, Sadler's Wells review - the migrant crisis in a ballet thriller
English National Ballet gives us the wilis, and then some |
Borg/McEnroe review - Wimbledon face-off is entertaining if incomplete
Shia LaBeouf is ideally cast in first of several tennis films to come |
Bad Move, ITV review - Jack Dee resettles in the middle of the road
Grumpy country comedy is long on sitcom DNA, short on originality |
Neil Sedaka, Royal Albert Hall review - sparkly veteran defies the decades
A joyful evening of vintage pop classics with an old master |
Senza Sangue/Bluebeard's Castle, Hackney Empire - uneven French-Hungarian mix
Odd casting undermines the power of Péter Eötvös's answer to Bartók's masterpiece |
We're Still Here, National Theatre Wales review - powerful protest and heartfelt theatre-making
Port Talbot steelworkers take a stand against the ravages of global capitalism |
Kingsman: The Golden Circle review - too much of everything
The curse of the sequel strikes again |
Oslo, National Theatre review - informative, gripping and moving
Award-heavy American play about the Oslo Accords is highly entertaining |
Mae Martin, Soho Theatre review - life is a drug
Dry storytelling about an obsessional life |
Mads Mathias, Pizza Express Jazz Club - honeyed yet precise
Danish jazz singer belies romantic appearance with tight and complex performance |
La Damnation de Faust, LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - infernal dynamite
Adrenaline levels still running high for the second instalment of #ThisisRattle |
Cinema Through the Eye of Magnum, BBC Four review - moving pictures
French documentary about the agency's film work sheds light on James Dean and Marilyn Monroe |
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latest in today
Lammermuir Festival 2017 review - rich and deeply rewarding
Increasingly, the Lammermuir Festival is – one audience member whispered conspiratorially to me – what East Lothian music lovers are switching to...
The Child in Time, BBC One review - lost in translation
Apparently this is the first time an Ian McEwan novel has been...
Oedipe, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - Enescu's masterpiec...
It’s official: Romanian master George Enescu’s four-act...
theartsdesk on Vinyl 32: OMD, Twin Peaks, Bicep, Sisters of...
September and October see a deluge of new releases. Everybody and their aunt puts out an album as autumn hits, so theartsdesk on Vinyl...
BBCPO, Mena, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - Mahler...
Juanjo Mena memorably began his tenure as chief conductor at the BBC Philharmonic with a...
The best TV to watch this week
Don't want to go outside? Take refuge on the box. We sift the schedules for yoSaturday 23 September
Black Lake, BBC Four – Swedish ski-resort...
Roddy Doyle: Smile review - return of the repressed
Although he made his name with the generally upbeat grooves and licks of his Barrytown Trilogy, Roddy Doyle has often played Irish family and...
Reissue CDs Weekly: Ducks Deluxe
That this year is the 40th anniversary of 1977, the year punk rock...