theartsdesk com, first with arts reviews, news and interviews
Tom Birchenough
Friday, 14 November 2025
We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts lovers and professionals alike – but the...
David Nice
Tuesday, 01 July 2025
Poor, slightly silly Semele fries at the sight of lover Jupiter casting off his mortal form, but in Congreve’s and Handel’s supposedly happy ending, everyone else rejoices that...
Hugh Barnes
Tuesday, 01 July 2025
In 2019, French-Tunisian journalist and documentary filmmaker Hind Meddeb flew to Sudan after the overthrow of hated dictator Omar al-Bashir, hoping to chronicle the dream of an...
David Nice
Tuesday, 01 July 2025
Over 100 years ago, John Christie envisaged Wagner’s Parsifal with limited forces in the Organ Room at Glyndebourne. He would have been amazed to see it arrive on the main stage...
Helen Hawkins
Monday, 30 June 2025
The red, white and blue bull’s-eye on the front curtain at Sadler’s Wells tells us we are in the familiar territory of Pete Townshend’s rock musical about teenage angst in 1960s...
Boyd Tonkin
Monday, 30 June 2025
Sometimes, as the first act of Beethoven’s Fidelio closes, the chorus of prisoners discreetly fade away backstage as their brief taste of liberty ends. At Garsington Opera, in...
Veronica Lee
Monday, 30 June 2025
Appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe has long been an expensive gig for comics. But while stand-ups may need only a microphone...
Kieron Tyler
Monday, 30 June 2025
The first five-and-a-half minutes of Sunwise’s opening track “Dùsgadh / Waking" are taken up by a drone. Played on the...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 29 June 2025
Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” was an instant phenomenon. Recorded in April 1967 and issued as a single on 12 May...
Helen Hawkins
Saturday, 28 June 2025
The corset is an unlikely star of the latest Lynn Nottage play to arrive at the Donmar Warehouse, 2003’s Intimate Apparel....
Pamela Jahn
Saturday, 28 June 2025
Andreas Dresen directs socially engaged realist films that invariably relay personal and political messages; the result can...
Gary Naylor
Saturday, 28 June 2025
Many years ago, reviewing pantomime for the first time, I recall looking around in the stalls. My brain was saying, “This is...
Thomas H Green
Saturday, 28 June 2025
Around eight years ago, London singer-songwriter Lail Arad started releasing one-off tracks with Canadian singer JF...
Mark Kidel
Friday, 27 June 2025
Alfred Brendel’s death earlier this month came as a shock, but it wasn’t unexpected. His health had gradually deteriorated...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 27 June 2025
Fans of the character comedian Graham Fellows will possibly turn up for this British film starring the man who created the...
James Mellen
Thursday, 26 June 2025
Lorde’s trajectory is continually fascinating. From the minimalist, sparse electropop of Pure Heroine to the similar but...
David Nice
Thursday, 26 June 2025
Actually it was a Thursday evening to Saturday experience, but what riches in seven concerts. The only Britten I heard was...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 26 June 2025
As producer Jerry Bruckheimer cautioned a preview audience, “Remember, this is not a documentary. It’s a movie.” Bruckheimer...
Graham Rickson
Thursday, 26 June 2025
Composer Bernard Hughes first met director Richard Bracewell when working on the film Bill, a 2015 Horrible Histories take...
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Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
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tv
Outrageous, U&Drama review - skilfully-executed depiction of the notorious Mitford sisters
A crack cast, clever script and smart direction serve this story well
Prost, BBC 4 review - life and times of the driver they called 'The Professor'
Alain Prost liked being world champion so much he did it four times
The Buccaneers, Apple TV+, Season 2 review - American adventuresses run riot in Cornwall
Second helping of frothy Edith Wharton adaptation
film
Sudan, Remember Us review - the revolution will be memorised
Gonzo documentary shines light on a lost opportunity in the Arab spring
theartsdesk Q&A: director Andreas Dresen on his anti-Nazi resistance drama 'From Hilde, with Love'
The East German-born filmmaker explains why his biopic of the activist Hilde Coppi isn't bound to the 1940s
Chicken Town review - sluggish rural comedy with few laughs (and one chicken)
A comedy great gets lost in an English backwater
new music
Music Reissues Weekly: Rupert’s People - Dream In My Mind
How ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ transformed a London mod-pop band
Album: JF Robitaille & Lail Arad - Wild Moves
A set of graceful, wry melancholy from an Anglo-Canadian singer-songwriter duo
classical
Aldeburgh Festival, Weekend 2 review - nine premieres, three young ensembles - and Allan Clayton
A solstice sunrise swim crowned the best of times at this phoenix of a festival
Schubertiade 3 at the Ragged Music Festival, Mile End review - five great musicians keep spirits soaring
Kolesnikov, Tsoy, Leonskaja, Ibragimova and Hecker in spellbinding performances
opera
Semele, Royal Opera review - unholy smoke
Style comes and goes in a justifiably dark treatment of Handelian myth
Le nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne review - perceptive humanity in period setting
Mostly glorious cast, sharp ideas, fussy conducting
Fidelio, Garsington Opera review - a battle of sunshine and shadows
Intimacy yields to spectacle as Beethoven's light of freedom triumphs
theatre
Intimate Apparel, Donmar Warehouse review - stirring story of Black survival in 1905 New York
An early Lynn Nottage work gets a superb cast and production
Hercules, Theatre Royal Drury Lane review - new Disney stage musical is no 'Lion King'
Big West End crowdpleaser lacks punch and poignancy with join-the-dots plotting and cookie-cutter characters
Showmanism, Hampstead Theatre review - lip-synced investigation of words, theatricality and performance
Technically accomplished production with Dickie Beau never settles into a coherent whole
dance
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Quadrophenia, Sadler's Wells review - missed opportunity to give new stage life to a Who classic
The brilliant cast need a tighter score and a stronger narrative
The Midnight Bell, Sadler's Wells review - a first reprise for one of Matthew Bourne's most compelling shows to date
The after-hours lives of the sad and lonely are drawn with compassion, originality and skill
comedy
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Kieran Hodgson, Soho Theatre review - a love affair soured by Trump
Can America be great again for the comic?
Books
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Ian Leslie: John and Paul - A Love Story in Songs review - help!
Ian Leslie loses himself in amateur psychology, and fatally misreads The Beatles
Samuel Arbesman: The Magic of Code review - the spark ages
A wide-eyed take on our digital world can’t quite dispel the dangers
visual arts
'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support
Much-appreciated words of commendation from readers and the cultural community
Abstract Erotic, Courtauld Gallery review - sculpture that is sensuous, funny and subversive
Testing the boundaries of good taste, and winning
latest comments
Thanks for this wonderful tribute to one of my...
What a churlish and childish review of Ian Leslie...
A truly excellent review. It completely expressed...
Why is the opening song "infamous"?
The Beach Boys finally retired from touring as it...
Just saw this yesterday. A very gripping and...
Dear David,Yes, OperaVision is a remarkable...
You mean James Ford. Not James Frost. x