tv
Squid Game, Netflix review - murderous game show hits the ratings jackpotSaturday, 23 October 2021
This Korean-made show suddenly became Netflix’s all-time greatest hit, demonstrating once again the irresistible allure of a game show which ruthlessly massacres its contestants. Read more...
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Ridley Road, BBC One review - Jewish community fights Nazi nightmare in 1960s LondonMonday, 18 October 2021
Neo-Nazis held a Trafalgar Square rally under the banner "Free Britain from Jewish Control" in the year of my birth; I had no idea until I watched Ridley Road. Most of us know about the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, but, until now, next to nothing about the Jewish resistance against fascist Colin Jordan and his gang of thugs, some of them cynically recruited from borstals and children’s homes, 17 years after the end of the Second World War. Read more... |
Thomas Hardy: Fate, Exclusion and Tragedy, Sky Arts review – too much and not enoughWednesday, 22 September 2021
Born in 1840, Thomas Hardy lived a life of in-betweens. Modern yet traditional, the son of a builder who went on to become a famous novelist, he belonged both to Dorset and London. When he died, his ashes were interred at Westminster Abbey, but his heart was buried separately alongside his first wife in the village of Stinsford in Dorset. Read more... |
Schumacher, Netflix review - authorised version of the life of an F1 legendMonday, 13 September 2021
Michael Schumacher’s skiing accident in December 2013, which left the seven-times Formula One world champion with a severe brain injury, added a shocking postscript to one of the greatest stories in motor racing. Having survived a decades-long driving career which included numerous accidents (including a motorcycle smash in 2009 which was apparently far more serious than the Schumi camp would admit), he was near-fatally stricken on a family Christmas holiday in Méribel. Read more... |
The North Water, BBC Two review - a terrible voyage into the great beyondSaturday, 11 September 2021
It’s perhaps unfortunate that The North Water arrives on BBC Two only a few months after The Terror, since it’s impossible to avoid the parallels between them. Read more... |
The Blood Pact, All 4 review - a (tax) inspector fallsMonday, 06 September 2021
In Klem (meaning "clamp"’), we find ourselves in the calm, ordered and ordinary world of Amsterdam-Zuid. There are parents’ evenings to be attended, school plays to be watched. The area’s many pretty parks are just perfect for the early morning jog. Tall green bins stand in neat rows. Read more... |
Clickbait, Netflix review - fiendishly cunning thriller keeps everybody guessingSaturday, 04 September 2021
It seems Covid-19 may not be the only plague threatening mankind. Read more... |
The White Lotus, Sky Atlantic review - dark side of a tropical paradiseSunday, 29 August 2021
As we saw recently in M Night Shyamalan’s Old, a visit to a holiday resort in a tropical location can have ghastly consequences. Read more... |
Britannia, Series 3, Sky Atlantic review - murder, mysticism and anaemic slapstickWednesday, 25 August 2021
According to series newcomer Sophie Okonedo, arriving in Roman Britain as Hemple, the wife of David Morrissey’s General Aulus, "I was already a fan of the show. I love it so much… I’d been thinking this is such a brilliant show to be in.” Read more... |
Hit & Run, Netflix review - Lior Raz excels as a hard man on a hazardous missionFriday, 20 August 2021
Lior Raz is Israel’s very own man with a very particular set of skills. However, unlike the looming 6ft 4in Liam Neeson who plays Bryan Mills in the Taken films, Raz is stocky, shaven-headed and clocks in at a mere 5ft 7in. 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...
Saul, Glyndebourne review - playful, visually ravishing desc...
This thrilling production of Saul takes Handel’s dramatisation of the Bible’s first Book of Samuel and paints it in...
The Gold, Series 2, BBC One review - back on the trail of th...
The first series of The Gold in 2023 was received rapturously, though apparently it only told one half of the story of the 1983 Brink’s-...
Eva Quartet, St Cyprian's review - polyphonic bliss
Eva Quartet are four outstanding Bulgarian voices of polyphonic purity and depth, drawn from the legendary choir Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, who...
Album: Mary Chapin Carpenter - Personal History
In those seemingly long-ago times of loneliness and lockdown, artists around the world invited us into their kitchens and living rooms as they...
Miss Myrtle’s Garden, Bush Theatre review - flowering talent...
The Bush Theatre is becoming a garden...
Così fan tutte, Nevill Holt Festival/Opera North review - re...
Marianne Moore once famously defined poems as “imaginary gardens with real toads in them”. Operas also fill, or anyway should fill, their...
Music Reissues Weekly: Gather In The Mushrooms
“Forest and the Shore” by Keith Christmas is remarkable. In his essay for Gather In The Mushrooms, compiler, author and Saint Etienne...
Big Star: The Nick Skelton Story review - the ways of a man...
If you’re horse mad or merely an every-four-years Olympic fan, you already know Nick Skelton’s story. Equestrianism can favour mature competitors...