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Aleks Sierz
Tuesday, 28 May 2024
When does creativity become mannered? When it’s based on repetition, and repetition without development. About halfway through star director Katie Mitchell’s staging of Margaret...
Bernard Hughes
Monday, 27 May 2024
Kudos to the Wigmore Hall for continuing to make efforts to diversify its roster of performers and repertoire. Last year I reviewed the Kaleidoscope Collective, and noted how the...
India Lewis
Monday, 27 May 2024
Last night’s Travels Over Feeling: The Music of Arthur Russell (a concert in part accompanying the recent publication of a book about his life by Richard King) was a brilliant way...
Tim Cumming
Monday, 27 May 2024
Any Richard Thompson appearance comes with a hallmark guaranteeing quality produce – be that an album or a stage show. Indeed, Thompson's 75th birthday concert will land on 8...
Kieron Tyler
Sunday, 26 May 2024
Jon Savage's The Secret Public How The LGBTQ+ Aesthetic Shaped Pop Culture 1955-1979 accompanies the titular author/historian/journalist’s book of almost the same name. The Secret...
David Nice
Saturday, 25 May 2024
Catchy even when the lyrics are at their cheesiest, the Jerry Herman Songbook serves up a string of memorable tunes: you’ll probably find that, like me, you recognize about 80 per...
Graham Rickson
Saturday, 25 May 2024
Britten: Spring Symphony, Sinfonia da Requiem, Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra London Symphony Orchestra/Sir...
Veronica Lee
Saturday, 25 May 2024
Ten years after their last tour Steve Punt and High Dennis are back on the road with We Are Not a Robot. It comes after...
Sebastian Scotney
Saturday, 25 May 2024
Brooklyn-based composer and bandleader Jihye Lee’s story really does take quite some telling. Having been an indie pop...
Demetrios Matheou
Friday, 24 May 2024
In the way of Batman being overshadowed by his villains, in his last outing, Mad Max: Fury Road, the erstwhile hero of...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 24 May 2024
It was – let’s see – 63 years ago today that Brian Wilson taught the band to play. Fabled for their resplendent harmonies...
Tom Carr
Friday, 24 May 2024
If there is one positive of the past decade, it must be the growing openness with mental health and wellbeing. Whether in...
Tom Birchenough
Thursday, 23 May 2024
There’s a fierce, dark energy to the Globe’s new Richard III that I don’t recall at that venue for a fair while. The drilled...
Bernard Hughes
Thursday, 23 May 2024
Like his baggy white suit, pitched somewhere between Liberace and Colonel Sanders, Pavel Kolesnikov’s playing was spotless...
Aleks Sierz
Thursday, 23 May 2024
It’s often said that contemporary American playwrights are too polite, too afraid of giving offence. But this accusation can...
Thomas H Green
Thursday, 23 May 2024
Isobel Campbell has maintained a consistent career on the fringes of popular music for three decades. She's made a home in...
Nick Hasted
Wednesday, 22 May 2024
Anita Pallenberg was a vital presence in the Stones’ most vital years. Her bright eyes and hungry mouth betrayed a ferocious...
Helen Hawkins
Wednesday, 22 May 2024
From New York’s Public Theater, the venue that nurtured Hamilton, comes another estimable pocket musical, Passing Strange....
Adam Sweeting
Wednesday, 22 May 2024
He’s not the kind of actor who has paparazzi following him around Beverly Hills or staking out his yacht in St Barts, but...
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disc of the day
Album: Richard Thompson - Ship to Shore
The master and commander of misery and despair casts off into the deep once more
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.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
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tv
The Beach Boys, Disney+ review - heroes and villains and good vibrations
Stylish retelling of the Beach Boys saga could use sharper teeth
theartsdesk Q&A: Eddie Marsan and the American Revolution, posh boys and East End gangsters
Versatile actor on playing John Adams opposite Michael Douglas in Apple TV+’s ‘Franklin'
Rebus, BBC One review - revival of Ian Rankin's Scottish 'tec hits the jackpot
Richard Rankin makes a compelling debut as the unorthodox Edinburgh cop
film
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga review - just as mad without Max
George Miller’s latest dystopian dust-up in the desert
The Beach Boys, Disney+ review - heroes and villains and good vibrations
Stylish retelling of the Beach Boys saga could use sharper teeth
'I think of her as a proto-punk': documentarist Svetlana Zill on Anita Pallenberg
The co-director considers her revelatory account of the Stones' muse of mayhem
new music
Album: Richard Thompson - Ship to Shore
The master and commander of misery and despair casts off into the deep once more
Travels Over Feeling: The Music of Arthur Russell, Barbican review - a sublime evening undercut by tonal shifts
Tribute to Russell brings together contemporary talent in an emotional concert
classical
Sphinx Organization, Wigmore Hall review - black performers and composers take centre stage
A welcome spotlight on diversified repertoire, played with sincerity and humour
Classical CDs: Cowhorns, gloves and marching drums
Contemporary sounds from Norway, plus rediscovered American and a brass dectet
Kolesnikov, Wigmore Hall review - celestial navigation through a cabinet of wonders
Quirky but brilliant programme finds connections between unlikely bedfellows
opera
Die Zauberflöte, Glyndebourne review - cornucopia of visual inventiveness eclipses everything else
An operatic feast for the eyes doesn't translate into conceptual satisfaction
Carmen, Glyndebourne review - total musical fusion
Production tells the story, mostly, but it’s the lead and the conductor who electrify
L'Olimpiade, Irish National Opera review - Vivaldi's long-distance run sustained by perfect teamwork
Sporting confusions and star-crossed lovers clarified by vivacious singing and playing
theatre
Bluets, Royal Court review - more grey than ultramarine
Katie Mitchell’s staging of Maggie Nelson’s bestseller is neither original nor beautiful
Jerry’s Girls, Menier Chocolate Factory review - just a parade that passes by
Three talented performers in a revue that doesn’t add up to much
Richard III, Shakespeare's Globe review - Michelle Terry riffs with punk bravado
A female cast rips into toxic masculinity in a rebalanced treatment of villainy
dance
The Winter's Tale, Royal Ballet review - what a story, and what a way to tell it!
A compelling case for ROH's ballet-friendly rebrand
All You Need Is Death review - a future folk horror classic
Irish folkies seek a cursed ancient song in Paul Duane's impressive fiction debut
MacMillan Celebrated, Royal Ballet review - out of mothballs, three vintage works to marvel at
Less-known pieces spanning the career of a great choreographer underline his greatness
comedy
Punt and Dennis, The Marlowe, Canterbury review - satire and sketches
Double act back on the road after a decade
DVD/Blu-ray: Billy Connolly - Big Banana Feet
The comic caught on the cusp of his fame as he tours Ireland in 1975
Clinton Baptiste, Touring review - spoof clairvoyant on great form
Character has life beyond 'Phoenix Nights'
Books
Extract: Pariah Genius by Iain Sinclair
A form-defying writer explores the troubled mindscape of a Soho photographer
Jonn Elledge: A History of the World in 47 Borders review - a view from the boundaries
Enjoyable journey through the byways of how lines on maps have shaped the modern world
Lisa Kaltenegger: Alien Earths review - a whole new world
Kaltenegger's traverses space in her thoughtful exploration of the search for life among the stars
visual arts
Brancusi, Pompidou Centre, Paris review - a sculptor's spiritual quest for form and essence
The Paris landmark signs off with a historic survey
Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider, Tate Modern review - a missed opportunity
Wonderful paintings, but only half the story
Eye to Eye: Homage to Ernst Scheidegger, MASI Lugano review - era-defining artist portraits
One of Switzerland's greatest photographers celebrated with a major retrospective
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