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Markie Robson-Scott |

Julian Sklar (Ian McKellan) has, he says, painted nothing but shit in 30 years and nothing at all for 20. In the Sixties he was a major star of the British art scene. Now he’s reduced to making personalised video messages for fans (apparently he still has plenty), wearing a blue beret for an authentically artistic look. £149 a pop, £249 “if I sign”.

Helen Hawkins
1536, Ava Pickett’s debut play, is a tribute to women who won’t shut up, especially ones living precarious lives in Tudor England in the year of the…
James Saynor
If you seek a filmmaker to create the fine grain of 20th-century Europe at its most traumatised, you can’t do better than Hungary’s László Nemes. The…
Boyd Tonkin
Sometimes operas – even immensely powerful ones – simply don’t make complete sense, and we can see why Dr Johnson dismissed the form as an “exotic…

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Sarah Kent
The raw power of art to convince
Adam Sweeting
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Robert Beale
Artistic achievement and production values vie for attention in a mediated experience
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Thomas H. Green
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Principal cellist plays two concertante works, the orchestra glittering alongside him
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Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini can't escape their pasts
Jenny Gilbert
A triptych of ambitious works by Wayne McGregor fails the sandwich test
Robert Beale
A Russian programme with intriguing and exciting pathways included
Matt Wolf
David Hare's latest casts an affectionate if sometimes creaky backwards glance
Bernard Hughes
Memoir of alcoholism is heavy on lacerating self-analysis but lighter on jokes
Gary Naylor
Comic gives way to tragedy, as a dead father's duplicity comes between his sons
alexandra.coghlan
This first revival of Deborah Warner's production only gains in horrifying intensity
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Top-tier Kurosawa melds visual beauty with moral clarity
David Nice
Two world-class soloists in perfect teamwork with fellow musicians and a top conductor
Kieron Tyler
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David Nice
Elizabeth Maconchy and Elena Langer hit their targets, Charlotte Bray falls short
Liz Thomson
Twenty years and counting!
aleks.sierz
The team behind Tambo & Bones return with a hilarious show about sex, sex and more sex

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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…
Julian Sklar (Ian McKellan) has, he says, painted nothing but shit in 30 years and nothing at all for 20. In the Sixties he was a major…
1536, Ava Pickett’s debut play, is a tribute to women who won’t shut up, especially ones living precarious lives in Tudor England in the…
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