wed 09/04/2025

Arts News

Listed: Essential BBC Proms

Hottest tickets for seats at the Proms have probably all gone already. Yet the beauty of it is that...

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Listed: The Very Best of 2015

Don't on any account miss the events in the selection you're about to read. Our rival outlets are...

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Listed: The Facts about Factual TV in 2014

It is a truism that the great tradition of documentary filmmaking has long since migrated to the...

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Listed: Science Fiction in Videogames

By far the majority of interactive art, entertainment and fiction – videogames for want of a better...

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Listed: The World and Beyond - London Jazz Festival 2014

Jazz. Is there any other term in contemporary culture so widely recognised, yet so difficult to...

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Listed: Wall Flowers - The Best of Berlin

It has long since become a cliché that the news of John F Kennedy’s assassination is implanted on...

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Listed: theartsdesk's Greatest Hits

To celebrate our fifth birthday, we offer you an insight into what you, the readers, have devoured...

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Listed: The laughter and tears of Robin Williams

Robin Williams, who has died at the age of 63, was a very American comedian. The flow of invention...

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Listed: 10 Mozart Operas You've Never Heard (of)

Mozart operas – we’ve all been there, whistled the arias, untangled the love triangles (quadrants/...

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Listed: The Best UK Summer Music Festivals For Families

While you give your tent an airing in anticipation of festival season, think about the imaginative...

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Listed: The World Cup's Most Beautiful Goals

Is football a thing of beauty? It depends who you ask. If you’re that way inclined, it is possible...

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Listed: 10 Great Trouser Roles

It's the genre of gender-bending and cross-dressing, where women play warriors and men sing like...

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Listed: Unmissable BBC Proms

The first bit of the annual Proms ritual is now out of the way, with the publication of the...

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Listed: Top 10 Children's Theatre Shows

If you are seeking to keep small children entertained this Easter, there's no need to sit around...

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Listed: Hauschka's Abandoned Cities

Hauschka is a musician and composer from Düsseldorf, performing in what has been dubbed a "post-...

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Listed: Celebrating Dylan Thomas

It won’t have escaped the attention of anyone with an ear for poetry that Dylan Thomas turns 100...

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Listed: The Vikings - Life and Legend

The British Museum's exhibition The Vikings: Life and Legend promises to redefine the Viking age...

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Listed: 10 American paintings before Pollock

The National Gallery recently embarked on a first: they acquired their first American painting. Men...

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Listed: The Best Uncredited Cameos

There are no awards, nor nominations. On the plus side there are no publicity chores either. And...

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Listed: The 12 Derangements of Christmas

We at The Arts Desk are as fond as the next person of swans-a-swimming, partridges and pear-trees,...

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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...

Primal Scream, O2 Academy, Birmingham review - from anthems...

Bobby Gillespie and Andrew Innes may have been steering the good ship Primal Scream for some 40 years but, on the evidence of this week’s visit to...

theartsdesk on Vinyl 89: Wilco, Decius, Hot 8 Brass Band, He...

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Rattle Encircle (Upset! The Rhythm)

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Marcus Brigstocke, Touring review - Modern manhood laid bare

The title of Marcus Brigstocke’s latest show, Vitruvian Mango, is, like the man himself, rather clever. He appears on stage...

Patrick McGilligan: Woody Allen - A Travesty of a Mockery of...

Patrick McGilligan’s biography of Woody Allen weighs in at...

Album: Black Country, New Road - Forever Howlong

Black Country, New Road’s Forever Howlong is an ambitious reinvention that both captivates and, at times, frustrates. Following Isaac...

Peter Grimes, Welsh National Opera review - febrile energy a...

Emotions run high at WNO these days. When the company’s co-...

An Evening with Joan Armatrading, Cadogan Hall review - tho...

I can’t hear Joan Armatrading without being instantly transported back to Liverpool, and my student digs just around the corner from Penny Lane. I...

Frang, LPO, Jurowski, RFH review - every beauty revealed

When Vladimir Jurowski returns to what used to be “his” London Philharmonic Orchestra, you’d better jump. I would have done on Wednesday had I...

Kenny Garrett, Ronnie Scott's review - a mixed bag

The sax-player Kenny Garrett established a reputation as one of Miles Davis’s band in the Amandla (1989) period. He was also a member of...