theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Tom Birchenough
Friday, 14 November 2025
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...
Nick Hasted
Tuesday, 05 August 2025
Rising temperatures, prickling skin, longing’s all-consuming ache: first love’s swooning symptoms overtake 17-year-old Johanne (Ella Øverbye) in the Golden Bear-winning Dreams,...
Stephen Walsh
Tuesday, 05 August 2025
Even more perhaps than straight theatre, opera seems to draw attention to the meaning behind what may on the face of it appear a simple story. That doesn’t necessarily mean that...
Adam Sweeting
Tuesday, 05 August 2025
Alexandre Dumas’ novel has been filmed an immeasurable number of times (there was a new French version only last year) and televised even more frequently (a Mexican incarnation...
Pamela Jahn
Tuesday, 05 August 2025
"First love is always both terrible and wonderful at the same time", says the 60-year-Norwegian dramatist-novelist-director Dag Johan Haugerud, whose new film Oslo Stories: Dreams...
David Kettle
Tuesday, 05 August 2025
Lost Lear, Traverse Theatre ★★★★A rehearsal room; a tense preparation session for a production of King Lear, provocatively gender-swapped; a troublesome diva in the title role;...
Veronica Lee
Tuesday, 05 August 2025
Alison Spittle, Monkey Barrel ★★★Alison Spittle is fat, she tells us at the top of the show. But not as fat as she...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 05 August 2025
The years between 1955’s The Ladykillers and 1964’s Dr Strangelove were the years of what Sanjeev Bhaskar recently described...
David Kettle
Monday, 04 August 2025
You could distinctly hear the murmurs of recognition from the Edinburgh audience – responding to knowing mentions of the...
Mark Sheerin
Monday, 04 August 2025
A rare cloud form envelopes the headland and to the east and the west Folkestone is cut off from the known world. This mist...
Veronica Lee
Monday, 04 August 2025
Rhys Darby, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★Rhys Darby, the New Zealand actor and comic best known as Murray Hewitt in...
Thomas H Green
Monday, 04 August 2025
Molly Tuttle is a star of the US bluegrass scene whose last couple of albums have broadened her appeal. On them she wandered...
David Kettle
Sunday, 03 August 2025
I’m Ready to Talk Now, Traverse Theatre ★★★★There are, inevitably, certain challenges when reviewing a one-to-one immersive...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 03 August 2025
One of the more interesting tracks on Paul Weller’s fascinating new cover versions album Find El Dorado is his...
Stephen Walsh
Saturday, 02 August 2025
“Powerful, Timeless, Inspiring” it says on the front cover of the programme-book for this year’s supposedly 297th Three...
Hugh Barnes
Saturday, 02 August 2025
Many readers and writers think of epistolary novels as old-fashioned, just as letter writing itself can seem a bit quaint...
Joe Muggs
Saturday, 02 August 2025
I like to think I’m open to most things, but even so I never thought that I’d be getting an education in prog metal in the...
Bernard Hughes
Friday, 01 August 2025
Arvo Pärt was into his 40s before he made had his Big Musical Idea: simplicity. He has spent the subsequent half-century...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 01 August 2025
After 76 years, you’d have thought they could’ve come up with a better story! Okay, that’s a cheap jibe and, given the...
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disc of the day
Blu-ray: Two Way Stretch / Heavens Above
'Peak Sellers': two gems from a great comic actor in his prime
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Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
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 Count of Monte Cristo, U&Drama review - silly telly for the silly season
Umpteenth incarnation of the Alexandre Dumas novel is no better than it should be
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, BBC One review - love, death and hell on the Burma railway
Richard Flanagan's prize-winning novel becomes a gruelling TV series
The Waterfront, Netflix review - fish, drugs and rock'n'roll
Kevin Williamson's Carolinas crime saga makes addictive viewing
film
Oslo Stories Trilogy: Dreams review - love lessons
First love's bliss begins a utopian city symphony
theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud on sex, love, and confusion in the modern world
The writer-director discusses first-love agony and ecstasy in 'Dreams', the opening UK installment of his 'Oslo Stories' trilogy
Blu-ray: Two Way Stretch / Heavens Above
'Peak Sellers': two gems from a great comic actor in his prime
new music
Album: Molly Tuttle - So Long Little Miss Sunshine
The US bluegrass queen makes a sally into Swift-tinted pop-country stylings
Music Reissues Weekly: Chip Shop Pop - The Sound of Denmark Street 1970-1975
Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley digs into British studio pop from the early Seventies
Album: Mansur Brown - Rihla
Jazz-prog scifi mind movies and personal discipline provide a... complex experience
classical
theartsdesk at the Three Choirs Festival - Passion in the Cathedral
Cantatas new and old, slate quarries to Calvary
BBC Proms: Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Kaljuste review - Arvo Pärt 90th birthday tribute
Stillness and contemplation characterise this well sung late-nighter
BBC Proms: Kholodenko, BBCNOW, Otaka review - exhilarating Lutosławski, underwhelming Rachmaninov
Polish composers to the fore in veteran conductor’s farewell
opera
Káťa Kabanová, Glyndebourne review - emotional concentration in a salle modulable
Janáček superbly done through or in spite of the symbolism
Buxton International Festival 2025 review - a lavish offering of smaller-scale work
Allison Cook stands out in a fascinating integrated double bill of Bernstein and Poulenc
Tosca, Clonter Opera review - beauty and integrity in miniature
Happy surprises and a convincing interpretation of Puccini for today
theatre
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Lost Lear / Consumed
Twists in the tail bring revelations in two fine shows at the Traverse Theatre
Make It Happen, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - tutting at naughtiness
James Graham's dazzling comedy-drama on the rise and fall of RBS fails to snarl
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: I'm Ready To Talk Now / RIFT
An intimate one-to-one encounter and an examination of brotherly love at the Traverse Theatre
dance
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Giselle, National Ballet of Japan review - return of a classic, refreshed and impeccably danced
First visit by Miyako Yoshida's company leaves you wanting more
Quadrophenia, Sadler's Wells review - missed opportunity to give new stage life to a Who classic
The brilliant cast need a tighter score and a stronger narrative
comedy
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Alison Spittle / Christopher Macarthur-Boyd
A weighty debate; and observations about this and that
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Rhys Darby / Alex Stringer
A fantastical journey into the age of AI, and one woman's search for sobriety
Books
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Natalia Ginzburg: The City and the House review - a dying art
Dick Davis renders this analogue love-letter in polyphonic English
Tom Raworth: Cancer review - truthfulness
A 'lost' book reconfirms Raworth’s legacy as one of the great lyric poets
visual arts
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Folkestone Triennial 2025 - landscape, seascape, art lovers' escape
Locally rooted festival brings home many but not all global concerns
Sir Brian Clarke (1953-2025) - a personal tribute
Remembering an artist with a gift for the transcendent
latest comments
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