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Witnesses: A Frozen Death, BBC Four review - plummeting temperatures in the Pas de CalaisSunday, 26 November 2017
A thankless task, perhaps, to find oneself following in the footsteps of the berserk Spanish melodrama I Know Who You Are (theartsdesk passim). Read more...
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Joe Orton Laid Bare, BBC Two review - charming look at theatre's irresistible upstartSunday, 26 November 2017
Laid Bare – it has a lurid implication which is all too suitable for Joe Orton’s work. During a time where the straight-laced British struggled to ease into sexual liberation, Orton stretched acceptability to its very limits. Salacious acts had been going on behind closed doors long before the Sixties, but everyone hid behind a modest front. Read more... |
Godless, Netflix review – a proper wild west rideThursday, 23 November 2017
There’s a storm heading to La Belle, the small forgotten town in the heart of the American West. As black clouds flash above the prairie, the injured body of Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell) falls at the door of widowed rancher Alice Fletcher (Michelle Dockery). After adding one more wound to his collection, she takes in the stranger and helps him heal. Read more... |
I Know Who You Are, series 2 finale, BBC Four review - Spanish drama literally took no prisonersSunday, 19 November 2017
So, if you’re reading this you probably trudged all the weary way to the very end of I Know Who You Are. Or you didn’t but still want to find out what the hell happened. After 20-plus hours of twisting, turning, overblown drama, long-service medals are in order for all who flopped over the line. Read more... |
Love, Lies & Records, BBC One review - Ashley Jensen too good to be trueFriday, 17 November 2017
Love, Lies & Records (BBC One) is one of those bathetic titles that are very Yorkshire. See also Last Tango in Halifax, which didn’t do badly. Sleepless in Settle is surely in development. Read more... |
Peaky Blinders, series 4, BBC Two review - new threats, same thrillsThursday, 16 November 2017
BBC Two’s flagship crime drama Peaky Blinders returns for another guilty dose of slo-mo walking, flying sparks and anachronistic soundtracks. Read more... |
Motherland / Detectorists review - comedy classics go at their own paceThursday, 16 November 2017
As Motherland settles down into its first series proper after last year’s pilot, it still seems to be going at a fair gallop. Read more... |
Storyville: Toffs, Queers and Traitors, BBC Four review - the spy who was a scampTuesday, 14 November 2017
“There is something odd, I suppose, about anyone who betrays their country.” It’s an excellent opening line, particularly when delivered in director George Carey’s nicely querulous narrative voice, for Toffs, Queers and Traitors (BBC Four). Read more... |
Howards End, BBC One review - EM Forster adaptation is finding its footingMonday, 13 November 2017
Can it really be a quarter-century since that finest of all Merchant-Ivory film adaptations, Howards End, was first released? Read more... |
Trump: An American Dream/Angry, White and American, Channel 4 review - a timely look at Trump and the causes of TrumpFriday, 10 November 2017
There are, as I’m sure many of you are aware, four key stages of political change. Denial, anger, acceptance and, finally, documentary film-making. 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...
The Salt Path review - the transformative power of nature
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Nick Mulvey’s first two albums, First Mind in 2014 and Wake Up Now in 2017, are among the loveliest singer-songwriter fare...
This is My Family, Southwark Playhouse - London debut of 201...
MOR. Twee. Unashamedly crowdpleasing. Are such descriptors indicative of a tedious night in the stalls? For your reviewer, who has...
Alan Sparhawk, EartH Theatre review - an absorbing game of t...
For the first half-hour of this show – on the day before the release of his new album Alan Sparhawk With Trampled by Turtles – Alan...
10 Questions for musician Michael Gira
Michael Gira (born 19/2/54) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, author and artist. He founded Swans, a band in which he sings and plays...
Album: Miley Cyrus - Something Beautiful
A couple of months ago, I wrote here that Lady Gaga was the godmother of the new generation of ostentatiously “theatre kid” pop stars – but...
The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone, BBC Two - boom and bust...
As this two-part documentary vividly illustrates, it...