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Theartsdesk
Wednesday, 01 October 2025
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.It followed some hectic and intensive months when a disparate and eclectic...
Robert Beale
Monday, 31 March 2025
The BBC Philharmonic took its Saturday night audience on a journey into French sonic luxuriance – in reverse order of historical formation, beginning with Duruflé, continuing with...
Adam Sweeting
Monday, 31 March 2025
The dramatic allure of families neck-deep in organised crime never seems to falter, and Stephen Butchard’s new series continues that great tradition in rambunctious style. Sean...
Rachel Halliburton
Monday, 31 March 2025
Over the last three years of the London Handel Festival, two experimental productions have proved to be highlights – not just of the festival itself – but of the musical year. In...
Kieron Tyler
Monday, 31 March 2025
A pizzicato violin opens Song Over Støv. Gradually, other instruments arrive: bowed violin, a fluttering flute, pattering percussion, an ominous double bass. They merge. The...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 30 March 2025
The sticker on the front cover says “The heaviest proto-metal compilation ever released.” And considering the label behind Yeah Man, It's Bloody Heavy is Rise Above, founded by...
Graham Fuller
Sunday, 30 March 2025
On the spoken word LP Loose Talk, Amelia Barratt reflects on her or other women’s experiences, real or imagined, over tunes...
Biss, National Symphony Orchestra, Kuokman, NCH Dublin review - full house goes wild for vivid epics
David Nice
Saturday, 29 March 2025
On paper, it was a standard programme with no stars to explain how this came to be a sellout concert. But packed it was, an...
Gary Naylor
Saturday, 29 March 2025
In Italy, they did it differently. Their pulp fiction tales of suburban transgression appeared between yellow covers on new...
Ibi Keita
Saturday, 29 March 2025
Will Smith’s new album, Based on a True Story, is a prime example of why some comebacks should remain hypothetical. After...
Boyd Tonkin
Friday, 28 March 2025
Forget, for a moment, the legend and the lustre. If you knew nothing about Riccardo Muti’s half-century of history with...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 28 March 2025
Resurrecting the origins of old rock stars is becoming quite the thing, After cinema’s Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Bob...
India Lewis
Friday, 28 March 2025
The End, a quasi-musical from Joshua Oppenheimer, who has previously only produced documentaries, is a surreal examination...
Aleks Sierz
Thursday, 27 March 2025
Creatives – or creatures? In the 1660s, women – having been banned from working as actors in previously more...
Joe Muggs
Thursday, 27 March 2025
I can’t stop reading and re-reading the review copy I got of a new book, out next week. Liam Inscoe-Jones’s Songs in...
Boyd Tonkin
Wednesday, 26 March 2025
Just now, the notion of a long-term project that concludes in 2041 sounds like an optimistic bet on the far future worthy of...
Saskia Baron
Wednesday, 26 March 2025
La Cocina is one of those films that cuts an excellent trailer, succinctly delivering just enough characters, plot and...
Tim Cumming
Wednesday, 26 March 2025
It’s been 14 years since Alison Krauss and Union Station released an album – 2011’s Paper Aeroplane. The world’s shed a few...
Robert Beale
Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Mariam Batsashvili, the young virtuosa pianist from Georgia, is a star. No doubt about that. Trained at the Liszt Academy in...
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disc of the day
Album: Erlend Apneseth - Song Over Støv
Norwegian musical impressionist’s journey into the centre of a vortex
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Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
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
This City is Ours, BBC One review - civil war rocks family cocaine racket
Terrific cast powers Stephen Butchard's Liverpool drug-ring saga
The Potato Lab, Netflix review - a K-drama with heart and wit
Love among Korean potato-researchers is surprisingly funny and ideal for Janeites
Adolescence, Netflix review - Stephen Graham battles the phantom menace of the internet
How antisocial networks lead to real-life tragedy
film
The End review - surreality in the salt mine
Unsettling musical shows the lengths we go to avoid the truth
La Cocina review - New York restaurant drama lingers too long
Struggles of undocumented immigrants slaving in a Times Square kitchen
new music
Album: Erlend Apneseth - Song Over Støv
Norwegian musical impressionist’s journey into the centre of a vortex
Album: Bryan Ferry and Amelia Barratt - Loose Talk
A match made in urban nightlife and the mysteries of everyday living
classical
Connolly, BBC Philharmonic, Paterson, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - a journey through French splendours
Magic in lesser-known works of Duruflé and Chausson
Tales of Apollo and Hercules, Guthrie, London Handel Festival, Shoreditch Town Hall review - compelling elements, but a failed experiment
Conceptually the two cantatas just doesn't work together
Biss, National Symphony Orchestra, Kuokman, NCH Dublin review - full house goes wild for vivid epics
Passionate and precise playing of Brahms and Berlioz under a dancing master
opera
La finta giardiniera, The Mozartists, Cadogan Hall review - blooms in the wild garden
Mozart's rambling early opera can still smell sweet
Der fliegende Holländer, Irish National Opera review - sailing to nowhere
Plenty of strong singing and playing, but the staging is static or inept
theatre
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Musical, Theatre Royal Bath review - not a screaming success
1950s America feels a lot like 2020s America in this portmanteau show
Wilko: Love and Death and Rock'n'Roll, Southwark Playhouse review - charismatic reincarnation of a rock legend
Johnson Willis captures the anarchic energy and wit of the late guitarist
Playhouse Creatures, Orange Tree Theatre review - jokes, shiny costumes and quarrels, but little drama
April De Angelis’s 1993 play is a delightful if sketchy account of Restoration female actors
dance
Romeo and Juliet, Royal Ballet review - Shakespeare without the words, with music to die for
Kenneth MacMillan's first and best-loved masterpiece turns 60
Light of Passage, Royal Ballet review - Crystal Pite’s cosmic triptych powers back
Total music theatre takes us from the hell of exile to separation at heaven’s gates
comedy
Harry Hill, Wilton's Music Hall review - madcap comic on terrific form
Utterly daft mix of new material and favourite old characters
Books
Henry Gee: The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Why Our Species is on the Edge of Extinction review - survival instincts
A science writer looks to the stars for a way to dodge our impending doom
Jonathan Buckley: One Boat review - a shore thing
Buckley’s 13th novel is a powerful reflection on intimacy and grief
visual arts
Echoes: Stone Circles, Community and Heritage, Stonehenge Visitor Centre review - young photographers explore ancient resonances
The ancient monument opens its first exhibition of new photography
Hylozoic/Desires: Salt Cosmologies, Somerset House and The Hedge of Halomancy, Tate Britain review - the power of white powder
A strong message diluted by space and time
latest comments
Well, Biss is at least a reasonably well known...
One of the greatest experiences of my life. Muti...
Finally, someone with some taste. This movie was...
I saw Nureyev and Fonteyn dance this wonderful...
This reworking of the original is soulless and...
A bit of a stretch. Could have been done in 2...
Thank you for this fantastic review. While I...
Stopped watching about half an hour in because...