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What a Carve Up!, Barn Theatre online review – ingenious whodunnitMonday, 30 November 2020
Classical murder mysteries end with a neat solution — and with the arrest of the perpetrator. Postmodern murder mysteries play games with the genre, turning it upside down and inside out. This film adaptation of What a Carve Up!, Jonathan Coe’s 1994 bestselling novel, is a postmodern crime story — and then some. Read more...
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Arena - Fela Kuti: Father of Afrobeat, BBC Two review - the music that never diesSunday, 22 November 2020
There have been Felabrations, stage musicals, bands featuring his sons Seun and Femi that have continued the legacy. There has been the slew of re-releases from his massive catalogue, and a number of films, including Alex Gibney’s Finding Fela, and the 1982 classic, Music is the Weapon. In his afterlife, the legendary Fela Kuti and his music feels more alive than ever. Read more... |
The Good Lord Bird, Sky Atlantic review - picaresque account of the myth of John BrownThursday, 19 November 2020
On the face of it, this new Sky Atlantic series sounded as though it might be a grave and sombre slice of American history, telling the story of the anti-slavery crusader John Brown and how his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia helped push America into the Civil War. Read more... |
Offended by Irvine Welsh, Sky Arts review - are we seeing the end of free speech?Wednesday, 18 November 2020
Do we have a right not be offended? It's a question that’s growing bigger and uglier, thanks to the censorious “cancel culture” which has become such a disfiguring aspect of social media. Read more... |
Small Axe: Mangrove, BBC One review - explosive start to five films about racial injusticeMonday, 16 November 2020
With the Black Lives Matter movement spurred this year by another wave of police brutality against African Americans, Steve McQueen’s blisteringly powerful, viscerally topical drama reminds us of the UK’s own torrid r Read more... |
The Crown, Season 4, Netflix review - royalty rocked by personal and political turbulenceSunday, 15 November 2020
Pre-release excitement about the fourth coming of The Crown (Netflix) has centred on Emma Corrin’s portrayal of Princess Diana, still big box-office 23 years after her death. Read more... |
David Crosby: Remember My Name, Sky Arts review - a rock icon looks in the mirrorSunday, 15 November 2020
Rock documentaries are so often disappointing, the result less a portrait than a whitewash. Read more... |
His Dark Materials, Series 2, BBC One review – upping the ante whilst retaining the magicMonday, 09 November 2020
The first series of the BBC and HBO’s fantasy adventure His Dark Materials felt even more timely than when author Phillip Pullman first published Northern Lights twenty-five-years ago. Read more... |
The Queen's Gambit, Netflix review - chess prodigy's story makes brilliant televisionFriday, 06 November 2020
It’s surprising, perhaps, that the dramatic potential of chess hasn’t been more widely exploited. There was a nail-biting tournament in From Russia with Love, while the knight’s chequerboard struggle with Death was the centrepiece of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Read more... |
Harlots, BBC Two review – sublime, ridiculous, and always entertainingThursday, 05 November 2020
Back to Georgian brothels, now – at least, for those of us who don’t have a Hulu subscription. The BBC’s airing of the second series of Harlots over the summer felt strangely timely. Barely an episode in and an angry crowd was hammering at the local judge’s door, demanding justice after the needless death of one of the city’s poorest residents. Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
The Fifth Step, Soho Place review - wickedly funny two-hande...
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Every now and then a concert programme comes along that fits like a bespoke suit, and this one could have been specially designed for me. Two...
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The appalling destruction of Pan Am’s flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 was put under the spotlight in January this year in Sky Atlantic’s ...
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Album: Robert Forster - Strawberries
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Music Reissues Weekly: Chapterhouse - White House Demos
Quoted in an early music press article on his band Chapterhouse, singer-guitarist Stephen Patman said their ambition was “to have our records on...