theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Peter Culshaw
Friday, 27 April 2018
Maen, a member of the rap collective Sa’aleek, was working one night in their small makeshift studio in the Qalandia refugee camp near Ramallah. He dozed off, only to find the...
Graham Rickson
Friday, 27 April 2018
Ealing Studios veteran Basil Dearden may have directed it, but 1944’s They Came to a City is mostly a JB Priestley film, an engaging blend of the mundane and the metaphysical. The...
David Nice
Thursday, 26 April 2018
Depression, with or without psychotic episodes, is a rare subject for drama or music theatre - and with good reason: the sheer unrelenting monotony of anguish and self-absorption...
Thomas H Green
Thursday, 26 April 2018
Gob Squad is a “seven-headed” Anglo-German arts collective who specialise in multimedia performance. Beginning in Nottingham in 1994 and now based in Berlin, their work ranges...
Aleks Sierz
Thursday, 26 April 2018
Rodney Ackland must be the most well-known forgotten man in postwar British theatre. His legend goes like this: Absolute Hell was originally titled The Pink Room, and first staged...
Richard Bratby
Thursday, 26 April 2018
The Fates did not want theartsdesk to review English Touring Opera’s new production of The Marriage of Figaro. The Beast from the East intervened to prevent a colleague from...
Mark Kidel
Thursday, 26 April 2018
Van Morrison has always been drawn as much to jazz as anything else. There is a natural swing to his voice, and his phrasing...
Aleks Sierz
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
Playwright Anthony Neilson has always been fascinated by sex. I mean, who isn’t? But he has made it a central part of his...
Matt Wolf
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
A much tinkered-with show needs to go back to the drawing board, if this latest iteration of Strictly Ballroom: The Musical...
Jasper Rees
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
A few years ago Abi Morgan was everywhere. For the cinema she scripted Shame, The Iron Lady, The Invisible Woman and...
Sebastian Scotney
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
Matthias Goerne has an exceptional ability to sustain evenness and legato through a vocal line. His breath control and his...
Matt Wolf
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
A one-time Martha and Maggie the Cat in the theatre, and a screen siren of the sort they don't make any more, might not be...
Steve O'Rourke
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
The God of War games are legendary action adventure titles that specialise in the slaying of giant mythical beasts via...
Thomas H Green
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
Blossoms are the latest inheritors of the massive-in-Manchester mantle that has, so often in the past, translated into...
Adam Sweeting
Tuesday, 24 April 2018
Some critics complain that Westworld is too complicated for its own good, and you can see their point. Even on a basic level...
Sarah Kent
Tuesday, 24 April 2018
What a superb location for a performance! The flats on the north-east corner of Islington Green back onto a crummy atrium...
Veronica Lee
Tuesday, 24 April 2018
Flo and Joan are sisters (Nicola and Rosie Dempsey: they have borrowed their stage names from their nan and her sister...
Owen Richards
Tuesday, 24 April 2018
Major Fakhir is a deminer, responsible for disarming hundreds of mines around Mosul every week. His American counterparts...
David Nice
Tuesday, 24 April 2018
The touch is not always light here. Swathes of clunking, cliché-ridden English dialogue threaten to make the star-crossed...
disc of the day
DVD/Blu-ray: They Came to a City
A Priestley experience - stagey but fascinating wartime social fantasy
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tv
The Split, BBC One, review - Abi Morgan’s densely packed divorce drama
Nicola Walker is the real deal in a hectic family law saga
Westworld, Series 2, Sky Atlantic review - big trouble in synthetic paradise
Apocalypse looms as androids go on the rampage
The Woman in White, BBC One review - camp Victoriana
Wilkie Collins's Gothic whodunnit gets a florid treatment for telly
film
DVD/Blu-ray: They Came to a City
A Priestley experience - stagey but fascinating wartime social fantasy
DVD/Blu-ray: The Touch
Bergman's typically individual take on a difficult affair has flashes of vintage brilliance
The Deminer review - life on the edge in Iraq
One man risks literal life and limb in this fascinating war documentary
new music
theartsdesk in Ramallah - the music biz turns its sights on Palestine
A new music Expo aims to highlight a music culture with massive potential
classical
Matthias Goerne, Seong-Jin Cho, Wigmore Hall review - slow and slower Strauss
A disappointingly one-geared Lieder recital
LSO, Rattle, Barbican review - incandescent swansongs by Mahler and Tippett
The London Symphony Orchestra's supreme soundsmith on top form
Wang, RSNO, Oundjian, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - percussion sets Shostakovich's 'Leningrad' ablaze
Music Director pairs two very different Russian works in his final season
opera
4.48 Psychosis, Royal Opera, Lyric Hammersmith review - despairing truth in song and speech
Philip Venables' opera is now as classic as the Sarah Kane drama it sets
The Marriage of Figaro, English Touring Opera review - vanilla Mozart still tastes sweet
Strong ensemble and basic staging help Mozart and Da Ponte succeed without tricks
DVD/Blu-ray: Bergman's The Magic Flute
Pretty start, heart of darkness: the greatest of all opera films now available to UK viewers
theatre
10 Questions for Sharon Smith of Arts Collective Gob Squad
Sharon Smith of the Berlin-based Gob Squad talks age, Oscar Wilde and Nicki Minaj
Absolute Hell, National Theatre review - high gloss show saves over-rated classic
Energetic revival of Rodney Ackland’s best play exposes many of its faults
The Prudes, Royal Court review - hilarious but frustrating sex show
New two-hander about sex is wise and funny, but fails to achieve a climax
dance
Obsidian Tear / Marguerite and Armand / Elite Syncopations, Royal Opera House review - an evening of high-performance mismatch
Fine dancing, but these three ballets have nothing to say to each other
Voices of America, English National Ballet review - a punchy programme of contemporary ballet
Forsythe commission is a romping, swaggering joy of a piece
Classical CDs Weekly: Lūcija Garūta, Dag Wirén, Ruby Hughes
20th century discoveries from Latvia and Sweden, plus a tribute to Handel's favourite soprano
gaming
God of War review - action adventure epic sets new standards
Father-son adventure is a slick and gorgeous spectacle
Metal Gear Survive review - staying alive shouldn't be such a slog
Bring out your wild side in this strange survivalist simulation
visual arts
Taryn Simon: An Occupation of Loss, Islington Green review - divine lamentation
A journey to the underworld in song
Monet and Architecture, National Gallery review - a revelation in paint
The king of the blockbuster seen in a new light
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