theartsdesk.com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
theartsdesk |
We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts lovers and professionals alike – but the…
Bernard Hughes |
I’m a latecomer to John Robins and Elis James’s hugely popular podcast, having only started to listen during a period of illness last year, when I quickly became hooked. The two (…
Tom Carr |
For Basement, the post-hardcore rockers hailing from Ipswich, their story is one of promise and unpredictability. With their debut, 2011’s I Wish I Could Stay Here, they took the…
Gary Naylor |
For a master dramatist - even for a tyro really - The Price is a strangely uneven play, brilliant psychological insights diluted by clunking structural issues. You wonder what it…
alexandra.coghlan |
“Charges that no court has made will be shouted at my head.” And so it proves. Benjamin Britten’s fisherman Peter Grimes is damned before a note is sung – condemned not by a judge…
Liz Thomson |
Rick Rubin has revivified many late-career musicians, most notably Johnny Cash, whose quartet of American Recordings achieved both universal praise and commercial success. Twenty…
Pamela Jahn
In Rose of Nevada, written and directed by Mark Jenkin, George MacKay plays Nick, a family man living in an impoverished present-day Cornish fishing village. He joins a trip on a…
johncarvill
Akira Kurosawa coulda been a contender. He used to be canon. Some of the critical sheen flaked off a while back, though. He hasn’t had a film in the top 10 of the Sight &…
David Nice
Serendipity smiled on a lunchtime event you'd have been happy to hear any time, anywhere in the world. Edward Gardner's typically engaging short introduction told us that Royal…
Ibi Keita
In 1999, American Football pioneered a brand-new genre with their self-titled album, and while they didn’t gain much recognition from their odd style of music, it soon grew into…
Kieron Tyler
“A rich and occasionally irritatingly gimmicky album…less perfectly realised than Autobahn, though there are some quite pretty tunes. People often charge electronic music with…
Pamela Jahn
Lindsay Duncan might be British acting royalty, yet her gangster matriarch Ollie in Charlotte Regan’s BBC drama series Mint is not what you'd call stately or regal. Flamboyant,…
David Nice
It all adds up to a cleverly interconnected triple bill and the perfect experience for five singers from the Royal Opera's Jette Parker Artists Programme. There are three losses,…
Liz Thomson
The Puppini Sisters brought their signature blend of close harmony singing to Islington’s Union Chapel on Friday, the opening night of a three-week UK tour marking their 20th…
Thomas H. Green
London band David Cronenberg’s Wife, a grimy stew of Eighties indie and folk trimmings, deal in the abject; shame, sadness and lust gone rotten. Their new album, for instance,…
aleks.sierz
Patriarchy is a trap for both men and women. This we know. But it’s not often that its takedown is as amazingly theatrical as this fabulous entertainment, Tender, by American…
Demetrios Matheou
The aftermath of school massacres for those left behind, and the pros and cons of restorative justice have become two strong themes for drama in recent years. Writer Fran Kranz…
Rachel Halliburton
There has been a trend in productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in recent years to portray Athens as a sexually repressive regime in which Queen Hippolyta is resentfully…
Gary Naylor
The USA was still months short of Pearl Harbour’s shove into World War II when Bertholt Brecht wrote The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. It was many years into a Cold War by the…
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Fifth album from Basement is more fleet-footed and breezy, but still rocking and hefty.
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Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
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tv
The Tony Award-winning star talks female power, sexism and becoming more Scottish with age
Sheridan Smith and Michael Sorcha prove a winning team in this unexpected treat
... as well as Ridley Scott, Jacques Audiard, Julia Ducourneau and Charles Aznavour
film
The 34-year-old actor drank a double dose of disorientation playing a man out of time in Mark Jenkin's ghost story
... as well as Ridley Scott, Jacques Audiard, Julia Ducourneau and Charles Aznavour
new music
Fifth album from Basement is more fleet-footed and breezy, but still rocking and hefty.
The Rick Rubin trilogy reaches completion
classical
Two world-class soloists in perfect teamwork with fellow musicians and a top conductor
Uplifting celebrations of musical kinship across cultures
Romantic cornerstones shine alongside Julia Wolfe’s document of trauma
opera
This first revival of Deborah Warner's production only gains in horrifying intensity
Elizabeth Maconchy and Elena Langer hit their targets, Charlotte Bray falls short
Berg's queasy setting of a visionary play as you never quite heard or saw it before
theatre
Comic gives way to tragedy, as a dead father's duplicity comes between his sons
The team behind Tambo & Bones return with a hilarious show about sex, sex and more sex
Fran Kranz’s new play explores the emotional aftermath of a school massacre
dance
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Body & Soul, English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells review - a surefire hit and an absolute plonker
Getting it very right and very wrong in this contemporary double bill
After 25 years and counting, Cassa Pancho's fine company remains essential
comedy
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
The character comic looks back at his career
books
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Memoir of alcoholism is heavy on lacerating self-analysis but lighter on jokes
The last surviving member of Beyond the Fringe never ceases to engage
visual arts
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
An artist who has lost her way
Gorgeous paintings in search of belonging
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