tv
Physical, Apple TV+ review - too much pain, not enough gainTuesday, 22 June 2021
It’s not easy to sum up Physical in a pithy soundbite, though “quasi-political misanthropic comedy” might be vaguely in the right ballpark. Read more... |
BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2021 Final, BBC Four review – an embarrassment of vocal richesMonday, 21 June 2021
A massive musical hope for the future is what we all need right now, after 14 stop/semi-start months and a threatened decimation of the concert and opera scene, the danger of which isn't over yet. Read more... |
Loki, Disney+ review - the God of Mischief gets his own TV seriesThursday, 17 June 2021
After appearing in six of Marvel’s Avengers movies, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki (the God of Mischief) gets his own TV series. Read more... |
Lupin, Part 2, Netflix review - master of disguise versus racists and liesSaturday, 12 June 2021
Lupin isn’t really about the fictional character it’s named after (the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, created in 1905 by French writer Maurice Leblanc), but about Assane Diop, who’s an obsessive fan of the Lupin novels. Read more... |
The Beast Must Die, Britbox review - a crime story which plumbs psychological depthsThursday, 10 June 2021
They all laughed when the streaming service Britbox declared that it wanted to become a sort of UK-orientated Netflix, because so far it’s been mostly a back catalogue operation which plunders the BBC and ITV archives. You really want to pay a subscription to watch Are You Being Served? and Rosemary and Thyme? Read more... |
Time, BBC One review - grim and gritty study of life behind bars by Jimmy McGovernMonday, 07 June 2021
Jimmy McGovern’s new three-part drama about prison life is about as far as you could travel from Ronnie Barker’s Seventies sitcom Porridge, even if they are both on the same TV channel. Read more... |
Anne Boleyn, Channel 5 review - whispery and weepyFriday, 04 June 2021
"Get out!" The order, spoken some way into the third and final episode of Channel 5's entry into the Tudor drama sweepstakes, Anne Boleyn, certainly seizes one's attention. Read more... |
Mare of Easttown, Season Finale, Sky Atlantic review - great performances in a town called maliceTuesday, 01 June 2021
With the last series of Line of Duty having left portions of its viewership dismayed and disgruntled, one consolation prize has been the way the many fine qualities of HBO’s Mare of Easttown (on Sky Atlantic) have seen it promoted it into the “unmissable” bracket. Read more... |
Before We Die, Channel 4 review - Lesley Sharp excels as a detective in crisisThursday, 27 May 2021
Perhaps inspired by its ever-intriguing Walter Presents strand, Channel 4’s new thriller Before We Die is based on a Swedish original called Innan vi dör (“before we die” in Swedish). Read more... |
1971, Apple TV+ review - rock'n'roll's golden year?Sunday, 23 May 2021
Back in the mid-Eighties, BBC television started broadcasting The Rock'n' Roll Years, one of the first rock music retrospectives. Each half-hour episode focused on a year, with news reports and music intermixed to give a revealing look at the development of rock culture against the context of current affairs. 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...
Code of Silence, ITVX review - inventively presented reality...
In the guided tour of Britain’s cathedral cities that is the primetime TV...
Pygmalion, Early Opera Company, Curnyn, Middle Temple Hall r...
With French baroque opera all but banished from the UK’s major...
Album: Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film
Stereolab always walked a knife edge between deadly serious and dead silly. Their sound was constructed around the sort of reference points –...
The Fifth Step, Soho Place review - wickedly funny two-hande...
The plays of David Ireland have a tendency to build to an explosion, after long stretches of caustic dialogue and very funny banter....
Josefowicz, LSO, Mälkki, Barbican review - two old favourite...
Every now and then a concert programme comes along that fits like a bespoke suit, and this one could have been specially designed for me. Two...
Mr Swallow: Show Pony, Richmond Theatre review - magic trick...
Nick Mohammed invented his Mr Swallow character – camp, lisping, with an inflated ego and the mistaken belief that he has creative...
The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a feast of...
Photographer Finetime and I have our first pints outside Dalton’s, a bar on...
Parsifal, Glyndebourne review - the music flies up, the dram...
There’s a grail, but it doesn't glow in a mundane if perverted Christian ritual. Three of the main characters have young and old actor versions...
The Bombing of Pan Am 103, BBC One review - new dramatisatio...
The appalling destruction of Pan Am’s flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988 was put under the spotlight in January this year in Sky Atlantic’s ...