tv
Comedy Against Living Miserably, Dave review - standups tread the boards for CALM charityWednesday, 25 March 2020
This was the third collaboration between Dave and the mental health charity CALM (Comedy Against Living Miserably), hosted at EartH in Dalston by Joel Dommett. Read more... |
Putin: A Russian Spy Story, Channel 4 review - inside the mind of a man without a faceTuesday, 24 March 2020
Director Nick Green’s new three-parter follows on the heels of his A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad and comparisons are sure to be made between his two subjects. Read more... |
Slipknot Unmasked: All Out Life, BBC iPlayer – masked metalheads reveal allMonday, 23 March 2020
There aren’t many metal bands like Slipknot. For a start, the nine-piece line-up consists of the standard vocalist, two guitars, bass and drums – but then there are also two percussionists, sampler and decks. Their music is consistently ferocious, with a hardcore, high-speed, ragging thump and semi-comprehensible lyrics that leaves no room for chart-friendly power ballads. Read more... |
The English Game, Netflix review - it's the toffs versus the workers in this version of sporting historySaturday, 21 March 2020
Julian Fellowes admits he knows little about football and has always hated sport in general, but this hasn’t prevented him from writing a TV series (for Netflix) about football’s 19th century origins. Read more... |
Taking Control: The Dominic Cummings Story, BBC Two review - disruptive political maverick eludes pigeonholingThursday, 19 March 2020
This patchwork of interviews and comments from male journalists and politicians interspersed with clips from television news and films, from The Godfather to The Avengers, was a zig-zag narrative of Dominic Cummings’s unique career as a political strategist. Read more... |
Feel Good, Channel 4 and Netflix review - a fresh, bingeable comedy that digs deep but feels mildThursday, 19 March 2020
“I am not intense.” That declaration arrives early in Feel Good, the new Channel 4 and Netflix romantic comedy fronted by comedian Mae Martin, who plays a fictionalised version of herself. Over Mae’s shoulder, we see a literal trash fire. She’s lit up the evidence of a past drug addiction. Read more... |
The Art Mysteries, BBC Four review - secrets and symbols of Van Gogh's famous self-portraitWednesday, 18 March 2020
Presenter Waldemar Januszczak suffers from something very like Robert Peston Syndrome, which makes him bellow at the camera and distort words as if they’re chewing gum he’s peeling off the sole of his shoe. Nonetheless he has a knack for finding fresh and revealing angles on art history, as he aims to do in this new series. Read more... |
Penance, Channel 5 review - lust, disgust and mistrust in Kate O'Riordan's thrilllerWednesday, 18 March 2020
Adapted by Kate O’Riordan from her own novel, Penance is a taut little thriller spread over three consecutive nights. Read more... |
Sunnyside, Sky Comedy review - the immigrant experience and the American dreamTuesday, 17 March 2020
The multi-talented Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar, Designated Survivor, House) took a two-year acting sabbatical in 2009 to work for the Obama administration. Read more... |
Belgravia, ITV review - when the toffs and the nouveaux riches collidedMonday, 16 March 2020
The prolific Lord Fellowes returns with this six-part adaptation of his own novel (for ITV), a niftily-wrought yarn (originally issued in online instalments) about the old aristocracy and the rise of new money in the early 19th Century. Some are inevitably calling it the “new Downton”, but it really isn’t. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Fiddler on the Roof, Barbican review - lean, muscular delive...
It’s always a risk when a production changes venue. In the curious alchemy of live performance, no-one can be sure whether a shift in surroundings...
In Praise of Love, Orange Tree Theatre review - subdued prod...
Terence Rattigan's rehabilitation – some...
Album: Little Simz - Lotus
Little Simz clearly believes in meeting situations head on. Her sixth full-length album kicks off, in every sense of the phrase, with “Thief”:...
Letters from Max, Hampstead Theatre review - inventively sta...
In 2012, the award-winning American writer Sarah Ruhl met a Yale playwriting student who became a special part of her life. Out of...
Bradford City of Culture 2025 review - new magic conjured fr...
Botanical forms, lurid and bright, now tower above a footpath on a moor otherwise famed for darkness and frankly terrible weather....
Album: Death In Vegas - Death Mask
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away called the late 1990s,...
La Straniera, Chelsea Opera Group, Barlow, Cadogan Hall revi...
Chelsea Opera Group has made its own luck in winning the devotion of two great bel canto exponents: Nelly Miricioiu between 1998 and 2010...
Dept. Q, Netflix review - Danish crime thriller finds a new...
Netflix’s new detective-noir is a somewhat cosmopolitan beast. It’s written and directed by an American, Scott Frank, derived from a novel, ...
The Queen of Spades, Garsington Opera review - sonorous glid...
Recent events have prompted the assertion – understandable in Ukraine – that the idea of the Russian soul is a nationalist myth. This production...