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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 |
David Mackenzie’s second superbly marshalled thriller in a year makes an unexploded bomb the backdrop for a London heist and its chaotic aftermath. Like his Riz Ahmed/Lily James…
aleks.sierz |
Stories about slavery tend to be simplistic: white perpetrators are bad, black victims good. One of the more striking features of Winsome Pinnock’s new play, The Authenticator, is…
Veronica Lee |
Sarah Millican is at an age where she is pausing to reflect and in Late Bloomer, her most recent show – shown as a special on Channel 4 and Netflix outside the UK and Ireland –…
Ellie Roberts |
Johnny Franck’s energy is palpable with the latest Bilmuri instalment, his signature comedic country metalcore style is as honed as ever and Kinda Hard really just sounds…
Kieron Tyler |
The opening track is Hoyt Axton’s “Evangelina.” After first appearing on the 1976 album Fearless it was re-recorded and issued as a flop UK single in July 1980. The new version…
Matt Wolf
Time is a terrifying force in Romeo & Juliet, and Robert Icke's headlong production never lets playgoers forget that fact. Returning to a tragedy he first directed for…
Adam Sweeting
Just a year after the first series, Your Friends & Neighbours returns to titillate and amuse us with the escapades of the moneyed but never satisfied burghers of Westmont…
Gary Naylor
Science on stage is quite the thing at the moment with a revival of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen opening at Hampstead Theatre next week and Lifeline, a British musical, injected…
Sebastian Scotney
Mountain Call from ECM – it consists of recordings made in Prague in very different contexts and settings between 2003 and 2010 – is a timely reminder of what a fearsomely…
Demetrios Matheou
If ever there was a piece that epitomised the view that villains are infinitely more fun than heroes, it would be Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s epistolary novel Les Liaisons…
Jonathan Geddes
There was something incongruous about seeing Basement Jaxx in a venue best known for regularly playing host to the likes of Scotland’s national orchestra and the roots and trad…
Guy Oddy
About a dacade ago and then again last year, Seattle’s proto-grungers, Melvins and Birmingham’s grindcore originators, Napalm Death hit the road with their double-header Savage…
Sebastian Scotney
François Ozon’s film of Albert Camus's The Stranger, one of the most iconic works of French existential literature, is as well-paced and restrained as the minimalistic novella…
Helen Hawkins
The baldness of the titles the writer-director Stefan Golaszewski gives his TV series — Him & Her, Mum, Marriage and now Babies — is a misleading guide to the subtlety of…
Pamela Jahn
Sergei Loznitsa's historical drama Two Prosecutors, which he adapted from the novella written by the onetime Gulag prisoner Georgy Demidov (1908-87), confronts the horrors…
Joe Muggs
theartsdesk’s Thomas H Green has lately been noting a “mellow production flatness” in modern pop and he’s really nailed a ubiquitous tendency there. The pendulum has definitely…
Adam Sweeting
The title doesn’t refer to a void into which detectives disappear, but to Harry Hole, the fictional Norwegian sleuth created by novelist Jo Nesbø. Netflix’s nine-part…
Thomas H. Green
VINYL OF THE MONTHBorokov Borokov World War Too (Rotkat)
Image
Belgian duo Borokov Borokov are described by one source as “…
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Another entry into the pop punk scene that would make for a great live set
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tv
Jon Hamm heads a rich cast of vividly-drawn characters
The sadness of multiple miscarriages gets a tender treatment and great performances
Tobias Santelmann is perfectly cast as Jo Nesbø's hard-bitten detective
film
The prolific French director probes more than existential alienation in this deceptively beautiful film
The Ukrainian writer-director discusses 'Soviet justice' and the trouble with history repeating itself
new music
Another entry into the pop punk scene that would make for a great live set
Eye-opening tribute to BBC Radio 2’s riposte to Radio’s 1’s allegiance to the charts
Justice done to the co-founder of Weather Report
classical
Different works call for different gifts in skills and sense of musical coherence
This year’s chorus of soloists has yet more revelations, but the overall vision’s the thing
Norwegian piano miniatures, a capella choral music and an iconic wartime chamber work
opera
Waterworks fail to douse the power of Britten's sinister masterpiece
Orpha Phelan's multi-layered production looks at tyranny over the centuries
Janáček's protagonist is a pure soul, a socialist and a survivor
theatre
Latest drama from Winsome Pinnock is too short to be thoroughly satisfying
Robert Icke's starry production elides 'Sliding Doors' with Shakespeare
Wonderful singing illuminates medical musical
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
books
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Story of the rise and fall of Sir Roger Casement works on the small and large scale
Saskia Vogel brings a darker than dark tale of rural grief to English for the first time
visual arts
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
A frieze of iPad pictures that sends you hurrying for the door
Photographs of California’s queer community in the 1990s
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