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...
Boyd Tonkin
Saturday, 28 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...
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. After the more male-dominated Sweat and Clyde’s at the...
Pamela Jahn
Saturday, 28 June 2025
Andreas Dresen directs socially engaged realist films that invariably relay personal and political messages; the result can be tough but is usually tender at heart.His Dogme 95-...
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 terrible, the jokes are lame, the acting execrable and...
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 Robitaille, once of Montreal indie outfit The Social Register (...
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...
Liz Thomson
Thursday, 26 June 2025
It’s somewhat surprising to read that The Boss wasn’t happy with Born in the USA. After all, it was – remains – his...
Mark Kidel
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
There's something luminous about the Brad Mehldau Trio. The music they create with such joy shines with a special clarity,...
Robert Beale
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
Opera can take many forms and fulfil many purposes: this chamber opera by Zakiya Leeming and Sam Redway is about vaccination...
John Carvill
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
Do we need any more Beatles books? The answer is: that’s the wrong question. What we need is more Beatles books that are...
Kieron Tyler
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
A Sober Conversation is the work of a master songwriter, one who knows how to achieve their goals. As the album’s nine...
David Nice
Tuesday, 24 June 2025
Aldeburgh offered strong competition for the three evenings of Schubert at the discreetly restored Ragged School Museum, but...
Gary Naylor
Tuesday, 24 June 2025
I think my problem is that when I should have been listening in school assemblies or RE lessons, I had the Tom Tom Club’s...
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disc of the day
Album: JF Robitaille & Lail Arad - Wild Moves
A set of graceful, wry melancholy from an Anglo-Canadian singer-songwriter duo
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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
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
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
F1: The Movie review - Brad Pitt rolls back the years as maverick racer Sonny Hayes
Joseph Kosinski's motorsport spectacle delivers bang for your buck
new music
Album: JF Robitaille & Lail Arad - Wild Moves
A set of graceful, wry melancholy from an Anglo-Canadian singer-songwriter duo
Album: Lorde - Virgin
Sombre self-examination and scratchy cellos fail to ignite on the New Zealander's new LP
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
Fidelio, Garsington Opera review – a battle of sunshine and shadows
Intimacy yields to spectacle as Beethoven's light of freedom triumphs
Dangerous Matter, RNCM, Manchester review - opera meets science in an 18th century tale
Big doses of history and didaction are injected into 50 minutes of music theatre
Mazeppa, Grange Park Opera review - a gripping reassessment
Unbalanced drama with a powerful core, uninhibitedly staged
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
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
Ballet to Broadway: Wheeldon Works, Royal Ballet review - the impressive range and reach of Christopher Wheeldon's craft
The title says it: as dancemaker, as creative magnet, the man clearly works his socks off
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?
Sarah Silverman, Netflix Special review - finding the funny in losing a parent
Affectionate memorial to her dad
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
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You mean James Ford. Not James Frost. x
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