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…
Helen Hawkins |
After Barber Shop Chronicles comes a female slice of pan-African life, set in Harlem in July 2019, at the fag end of Donald J Trump’s first presidency. Playwright Jocelyn Bioh…
Kieron Tyler |
Blackpool Cool is the third and last album by Glasgow’s Head. Issued in 1977 on the band’s own Head Records label, it was preceded by 1973’s GTF and 1975’s Red Dwarf.…
Tom Carr |
Jose Gonzales is one of those musicians who is well known without many recognising it. Until that is, someone plays his most known track “Heartbeats”, which was unavoidable after…
Nick Hasted |
The vertigo of lawlessness in Stalin’s Russia carries contemporary resonance in Sergei Loznitsa’s latest Soviet parable. As a Russian dictator invades a neighbour and erases his…
Boyd Tonkin |
“Fear death by water,” says the fortune-teller in TS Eliot’s The Waste Land. There were a few moments in Natalie Abrahami’s new production of The Turn of the Screw when I worried…
David Nice
Was it a risk to attend a third Irish Baroque Orchestra Matthew Passion in as many years, given that previous indelible interpretations had come from Helen Charlston, Hugh Cutting…
Body & Soul, English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells review - a surefire hit and an absolute plonker
Jenny Gilbert
If it were true, as Timothée Chalamet has said, that ballet as an art form has become a museum, the job of running a national ballet company would be easy. Ballet never ceases to…
graham.rickson
Brahms: Trio Op. 114, Robert & Clara Schumann: Romances. Joachim: Hebrew Melodies Tabea Zimmermann (viola), Javier Perianes (piano) Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello) (Harmonia Mundi…
Ibi Keita
Tom Misch’s Full Circle is an easy, pleasant listen, but it tends to drift by without leaving much of a lasting impression. He leans into a softer, more reflective sound…
Jonathan Geddes
Years have passed since the early days of Gorillaz, when the real musicians behind the cartoon band remained hidden from view onstage. Yet some things never change, and while…
Rachel Halliburton
Tamerlano, tyrannical Emperor of the Tartars, is a burger-munching boor with a golf-habit, a bulbous belly and a crashing disdain for other people’s sensitivities. In Orpha Phelan…
Tom Carr
The premise of a four-piece rock band hailing from Bedford sounds very unassuming when compared to the reality of the eclectic rockers, Don Broco. Their journey, not just…
aleks.sierz
Playwright David Hare is on a West End roll. Not only is his new play, Grace Pervades, about super thespians Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, making its way from Bath’s Theatre Royal…
Joe Muggs
In 1988, in The Manual: How to Have a Number 1 The Easy Way, Bill Drummond wrote: “We await the day with relish that somebody dares to make a dance record that consists of nothing…
Helen Hawkins
The Channel 5 drama Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards does what it says on the tin. We watch the fêted newsreader from initial online contact with a 17-year-old from Cardiff -…
David Nice
Are Seán O'Casey's Dublin plays good for theatre today, or just for the history of Irish drama? My limited recent experience makes it hard to be sure: Juno and the Paycock in…
Veronica Lee
Phil Ellis has been plying his trade for a while and is an established performer at the Edinburgh Fringe, where he has won awards – including the Edinburgh Comedy Award Panel…
Bernard Hughes
Rory Carroll’s previous book, Killing Thatcher, was terrific, and widely praised. It followed the IRA plot to murder the Prime Minister in 1984 and the subsequent police…
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tv
Mark Burt's script takes a measured approach to its potentially incendiary material
David Morrissey dominates a dark tale of secrets and lies
From Manhattan to Montana with the prolific Taylor Sheridan
film
A lawyer sinks into a bureaucratic quagmire in a darkly humane Stalinist parable
The Italian star talks about his third portrayal of an Italian head of state
new music
Gloomy yet brooding and compelling human
A well-crafted sound that plays it a little too safe
classical
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
Perfectly proportioned 'Eroica' sets the seal of distinction on these visitors' tour
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
Jocelyn Bioh's Tony-nominated play about the lot of modern-day Black women is a treat
Electric live music enlivens revival of David Hare’s elegiac gig theatre show
Some abstraction in the sets is fine, but several underpar performances mar the flow
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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