theartsdesk.com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
David Nice |
Into the Woods, let's dare to state it, is the most perfect music-theatre creation of the last 40 years. Sondheim's sense of timing, equal to Puccini's, and his unprecedented…
James Saynor |
This year is the 70th birthday of the London Film Festival – the grand variety pack of films from the year’s other festivals, with few premieres of its own. The competition…
Graham Rickson |
The titular yellow tie isn’t seen much in this lavish biopic, a gift “for a future Prime Minister of Romania” from Sean Bean’s grumpy patriarch Demostene (pictured below) to his…
Gary Naylor |
There’s a sinister edge these days to men dressed all in black, marching in step. They used to be quite funny (in this country anyway) and often still are, but the Roderick Spode…
Sarah Kent |
Fancy a trip to the seaside, if the fine weather returns? Then make Margate your destination. On my visit the sea was blue and the light was glorious, and at Turner Contemporary…
Adam Sweeting |
This third and final instalment of Anthony Horowitz’s Susan Ryeland trilogy continues the author’s ingenious mystery-within-a-mystery formula and brings back the titular literary…
Tim Cumming
The autumnal return of the K-Music Festival, which started in 2013, is good news for those who like their world music adventurous, surprising, challenging. Over the years we’ve…
Joe Muggs
A young electronic music producer of my acquaintance recently wrinkled their nose at Chase & Status’s last mega hit “BACKBONE,” saying “it’s just presets”. That is, they…
Gary Naylor
The title is a portmanteau word, one that hardly stretches one’s sleuthing capacity to decipher, which proves, unlike much else in a very curious two hours, to be well-chosen for…
Guy Oddy
Test Dept are pioneers of hardcore, ear-battering industrial music who first got together in the early 1980s. They may have originally called it quits in 1997, but for the last…
johncarvill
Most of the Brit gangster movies released around the turn of the Millennium were pretty dire. Often influenced by Quentin Tarantino’s crass, style-instead-of-substance aesthetic,…
Joe Muggs
Dance culture is constantly remixing its past, but it seems like we’re in a sudden burst of interesting twists on that. Just in the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen British reggae…
Gary Naylor
The first thing I saw on entering just about my favourite theatre was a mic on the end of a lead, centre stage. I’d come a long way, so I didn’t quite turn around and go home, but…
Robert Beale
Barkouf, the operetta that Offenbach wrote in 1860 immediately after Orpheus in the Underworld, was, you might say, dogged by misfortune at the time of its creation.Leading…
Sarah Kent
If your parents were eccentric enough to call you Esmerelda – a name they gleaned from a crossword puzzle – you’d most likely feel destined to become a wizard or a witch. Es…
Tim Cumming
I saw Sam Sweeney and Grace Smith perform back in August at the Sidmouth Folk Festival, in the function room of one of the bigger hotels overlooking the seafront. It was sold out…
Nick Hasted
“The knife in the eye is the cruellest blow,” Salman Rushdie considers, in this film of his book reckoning with the assault which almost killed him. The prolific and brilliant…
David Nice
"German sounds a thoroughly respectable language, and indeed, I believe is so, " pronounces Wilde's Lady Bracknell. She may, in Gerald Barry's operatic setting of The Importance…
Stuart Begley
Woodrow Wilson's attempts to forge a new international order based on principles of democracy, equal respect for sovereignty and an intergovernmental league with robust powers…
disc of the day
UK duo's brutally effective formula is adaptable to most things... except possibly guitars
tv
Last time around for Anthony Horowitz's bookish heroine Susan Ryeland?
Rival law firms go into battle in high-profile divorce case
Janus Metz's film leaves us little the wiser about the notorious killer
film
Our first look at the global movie compendium, which returns with 250 offerings
Expansive, expensive musical biopic with a starry cast, led by John Malkovich
new music
A Korean and French septet move beyond boundaries at London’s K-Music Festival
UK duo's brutally effective formula is adaptable to most things... except possibly guitars
Harsh & fierce sounds of resistance at a serious volume
classical
Ireland's leading orchestra gets a dose of Wilsonian Idealism
Fascinating programmes from a range of pianists, and an amazing masterclass
Lighting and dancers make a multi-media experience, but Steve Reich's music is the star
opera
An operetta once dogged by misfortune finds its happy ending at last
Stanislas de Barbeyrac's protagonist matches Jakub Hrůša's conducting for intensity
A double bill with varied outcomes
theatre
Bridge Theatre transfer is totally compelling, with strong vocals throughout
Somewhat laboured comedy enlivened by a warm, all-male cast
Two halves do not make a whole
dance
The Royal Ballet principal shows off his tap skills, his colleague a Paganini party piece
The Pandora myth makes an underwhelming vehicle for the dangers of AI
Matthew Bourne’s 2000 hit revs up again with impressive dancers and a witty score
comedy
Irish comic delivers a gag-heavy hour
books
Style fails to meet philosophical ambition in a novel that treads old ground
This revelatory biography is sympathetically told and endlessly entertaining
Clint Boon lovingly recalls those baggy, funky, sinsemilla-scented Madchester days
visual arts
Absence made humorously present
An archive opened to view
A feel good show in which familiarity is leavened by surprises
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