coronavirus
Albums of the Year 2020: Melt Yourself Down - 100% YesWednesday, 16 December 2020
I’ll leave it to others, better placed, to unpack 2020’s gruelling impact on so many. But one of its side effects was the elevation, alongside food and television, of recorded music. It became a salve, a focus, a locus of social media blather about... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: poet laureate Simon Armitage on landscapes, libraries, home and edgelandsThursday, 10 December 2020
Simon Armitage is a poet at the top of his game: in his second year as poet laureate, he has given voice to the experiences of lockdown. In March, he released his collection Magnetic Field: The Marsden Poems, a return to the childhood village in... Read more... |
Nine Lessons and Carols, Almeida Theatre review – spiky portrayal of a world turned upside downThursday, 10 December 2020
How do you create a secular version of the Nine Lessons and Carols? The original can feel like a formulaic trot through tunes and stories as stale as fossilised mince-pies. Yet it helps to remember that in essence it reflects on the story of a world... Read more... |
Don DeLillo: The Silence review - when the lights of technology go outTuesday, 08 December 2020
Don DeLillo’s latest novella, The Silence, has been marketed with an emphasis on its prescience, describing the shocked lacuna of time around a devastating event whose repercussions are yet to be truly felt. It is a compelling short read, but a... Read more... |
Host review - Zoom seance triggers unspeakable consequencesSaturday, 05 December 2020
Lockdowns must be good for something, right? British writer-director Rob Savage (a 2013 Screen International Star of Tomorrow, factoid fans) has made the most of the unwelcome imposition of our first national incarceration by creating a Zoom-powered... Read more... |
Album: Kylie - DISCOThursday, 05 November 2020
We’re eight months into a global pandemic, and Kylie Minogue is serenading us from her kitchen. “We’re a million miles apart in a thousand ways,” she sings, feather-light vocals floating over a driving disco beat. “Can we all be as one again?”At... Read more... |
Sunnymead Court, Tristan Bates Theatre review - a lovely lockdown romanceSaturday, 26 September 2020
The first words of Sunnymead Court, a new play at the Tristan Bates Theatre, are ominous. “We are transitioning from human experiences to digital experiences.” Oof. Thankfully, this isn’t another gloomy lockdown drama about the evils of Zoom quizzes... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Hamburg: Ghost Light - a ballet in the time of coronaSaturday, 26 September 2020
So the Royal Ballet is to make a live comeback, for one night only, on 9 October. Fielding the entire company of 100 dancers, suitably distanced, the enterprise is being hailed as a triumph of logistics. And so it is. But the fact remains that the... Read more... |
theartsdesk on Vinyl 59: Johnny Cash, Bananagun, Fleetwood Mac, Romare, PJ Harvey, Kamaal Williams and moreWednesday, 19 August 2020
The usual summer vinyl release slump doesn’t seem to apply this year. During the COVID-19 crisis, the demand for vinyl has risen rather than fallen and theartsdesk on Vinyl reflects that again this month with another monster round-up of reviews,... Read more... |
New Music Unlocked 5: Biffy Clyro, Rave the Vote, Little Simz and AJ TraceyWednesday, 12 August 2020
Although Metallica are screening a freshly recorded concert across America’s drive-in cinemas at the end of the month, we’re no nearer to actual gigs anywhere, especially the UK. Hold tight. We’ll get there. In the meantime, here are three events... Read more... |
Ali Smith: Summer review - a hopeful present, beautifully describedSunday, 02 August 2020
It is no surprise, given her Cambridge Intellectual literary style, that Ali Smith’s Summer is multi-layered, referential, and filled with cameos from giants in the fields of art and science. It is arguably the best of the four novels in her... Read more... |
New Music Unlocked 3: Dermot Kennedy, Lollapalooza and Cambridge FolkTuesday, 28 July 2020
We are no nearer live music returning and, as venues across the country face financial collapse, it’s clear that even when we reach some sort of "new normal", far from all will be left standing. This is clearly a disaster for British music. #... Read more... |
