theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Saskia Baron
Thursday, 02 February 2023
You Resemble Me is the very definition of a passion project, and all the better for it. First-time director Dina Amer was a journalist working for Vice News. She...
Aleks Sierz
Thursday, 02 February 2023
Culture which arrives from the margins to the mainstream is a classic phenomenon. In the case of Sam Steiner’s Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons it has taken almost a decade for...
Thomas H Green
Thursday, 02 February 2023
The Waeve is the debut album from life partners Rose Elinor Dougall (long ago in The Pipettes) and Graham Coxon (of Blur), working with instrumentalist James Ford (of Simian...
Aleks Sierz
Wednesday, 01 February 2023
Do the right thing! But doing the right thing isn’t easy – especially if you are a teen. And a female teen who is being pressurised by your mother and your school teacher. It...
Graham Fuller
Wednesday, 01 February 2023
At their best, horror movies reflect destabilisation caused by cracks in the social fabric. The crack indicated in the documentarist Andrey Paounov’s fiction debut January is the...
Tim Cumming
Wednesday, 01 February 2023
Lisa O’Neill is a part of the new wave of Irish contemporary folk artists, one that encompasses the likes of Lankum, Ye Vagabonds and John Francis Flynn, all of them putting their...
David Nice
Tuesday, 31 January 2023
It’s dangerous to claim a sense of absolute rightness about a musical performance; that could mean no more than responding...
Helen Hawkins
Tuesday, 31 January 2023
Frantic Assembly’s Othello, originally co-developed with the Lyric in 2008, is back in its third iteration, and it’s still...
Graham Rickson
Tuesday, 31 January 2023
Watching these harrowing films in rapid succession allows us to watch a great director’s confidence develop at close hand;...
Gavin Dixon
Monday, 30 January 2023
This concert was advertised as the completion of an Elgar symphony cycle, though in the absence of the reconstructed Third,...
Aleks Sierz
Monday, 30 January 2023
Ever been to a queer club? You know, drag cabaret night at Madame Jojo’s, or the Black Cap or Her Upstairs. No? Well, not to...
Robert Beale
Monday, 30 January 2023
Ben Gernon’s calm and clear way of conducting an orchestra (something he once told me he’d observed in the work of his...
Kieron Tyler
Monday, 30 January 2023
Reflections on how the past relates to now suffuse The Candle and the Flame. The album’s closing track is “When I Was a...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 29 January 2023
“Ka Huma” by Ivo Nilakreshna sounds as if a jazz band was taking on rock ’n’ roll. There’s a swing and sway, busy rhythm...
David Nice
Sunday, 29 January 2023
It’s coming up for two years since some of us watched the first three seasons of what’s increasingly coming to seem like...
Nick Hasted
Saturday, 28 January 2023
Spielberg sometimes directed The Fabelmans through a film of tears, as he recreated his cinema’s origins. Lightly...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 28 January 2023
Roger Norrington: The Complete Erato Recordings (Erato)Richard Osborne’s booklet essay contains some telling words...
Sebastian Scotney
Saturday, 28 January 2023
A Short Diary, a duo album for piano and drums, contains music of astonishing directness, calm and concentration. The story...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 27 January 2023
A film telling just the story of photographer Nan Goldin’s campaign against Purdue Pharmacy would have been worth the ticket...
disc of the day
Album: The Waeve - The Waeve
The debut album from Rose Elinor Dougall and Blur's Graham Coxon mingles the vital with the wafting
tv
Women at War, Netflix review - contrasting stories entwine during the chaos of World War One
Passion, intrigue and heartbreak behind the front lines
Stewart, Sky Documentaries review - touching and insightful portrait of Scottish race ace
Fascinating documentary explores the triumphs and tragedies of motor racing
film
January review - the end is nigh in vampirised Bulgaria
A chilling post-Soviet folk horror allegory set in bleak midwinter
Blu-ray: The War Trilogy - Three Films by Andrzej Wajda
Three bleak but spectacular post-war classics, in gleaming new transfers
The Fabelmans review - Spielberg remembers with wit and wonder
The director's early life examined with understated, almost unconscious need
new music
Album: The Waeve - The Waeve
The debut album from Rose Elinor Dougall and Blur's Graham Coxon mingles the vital with the wafting
Album: Lisa O'Neill - All of This Is Chance
The Irish singer-songwriter delves into the natural world for her magical new album
Album: Robert Forster - The Candle and the Flame
At an uncertain time, the former Go-Between takes stock
classical
Leonskaja, Staatskapelle Streichquartett, Wigmore Hall / Secret Byrd, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - genuine versus theatrical
Brahms illuminated, Byrd rather more obliquely showcased
Ólafsson, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - spirit of delight
A curate's-egg turn from the Icelandic pianist in Schumann followed by magisterial Elgar
Gerhardt, BBC Philharmonic, Gernon, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - calm and clear conducting
Maybe not perfect, but when things worked, they worked beautifully
opera
First Person: soprano Soraya Mafi on why Glyndebourne's tour cancellation is disastrous
Though Arts Council England has partly reinstated English National Opera's grant, its cuts still have devastating consequences for the regions
Least Like the Other, Irish National Opera, Linbury Theatre review - the harrowing of Rosemary Kennedy
Composer Brian Irvine, director/designer Netia Jones and top performers mesmerise
A Child in Striped Pyjamas, The Cockpit review - a brave tackling of a Holocaust story
The celebrated novel is brought to the stage by a young composer with ambition
theatre
Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons, Harold Pinter Theatre review - cool cast chills the drama
West End transfer for Sam Steiner’s fringe classic does the play no favours
Two Billion Beats, Orange Tree Theatre review - lively, but overly idealistic
Sonali Bhattacharyya’s coming-of-age drama returns with a new cast
Othello, Lyric Hammersmith review - Frantic Assembly's high-energy take on the Moor
Shakespeare's tragedy as a tight thriller, with its racist elements fully exposed
dance
Julie Cunningham & Co, Sadler's Wells review - a fine piece of work, with added spice
The other Cunningham stakes out their territory in contemporary dance, and the non-binary debate
Swan Lake, English National Ballet, Coliseum review - the story of a deluded prince
The corps de ballet take the laurels in Derek Deane's dependably fine production
comedy
Alex Edelman, Menier Chocolate Factory review - London run for unmissable off-Broadway hit
How a Jewish standup found the funny side of a roomful of white nationalists
Books
'I let it emerge': an interview with Fiona Benson on the cusp of the TS Eliot Prize announcement
The poet discusses her new book, mayflies, motherhood, and memory
Jaan Kross: A Book of Falsehoods review - plague, power and deception in 16th century Tallinn
At last, the translation of volume three in the Estonian master's great historical trilogy
visual arts
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed review - superb documentary about a campaigning artist
Nan Goldin's fight against the makers of Oxycontin is as gutsy as her work
Spain and the Hispanic World, Royal Academy review - a monumental survey
The refurbishment of New York's Hispanic Society provides a unique opportunity to see its treasures
latest comments
Maybe not alone, but in a very small minority....
Great to see the Elinor Frey concertos album...
I was there and in the circle seats. I had a hard...
Not all the audience! I thought it was tedious.
I agree with Colette’s comment above. It’s great...
Am I alone in finding Sgt Catherine Cawood a...
If Eva joins the cast as a regular it will test...
thanks for a nicely in depth review with some...