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...
Stephen Walsh
Saturday, 02 August 2025
“Powerful, Timeless, Inspiring” it says on the front cover of the programme-book for this year’s supposedly 297th Three Choirs Festival at Hereford. So please leave your frivolity...
Hugh Barnes
Saturday, 02 August 2025
Many readers and writers think of epistolary novels as old-fashioned, just as letter writing itself can seem a bit quaint nowadays. The genre became popular during the 18th and...
Joe Muggs
Saturday, 02 August 2025
I like to think I’m open to most things, but even so I never thought that I’d be getting an education in prog metal in the summer of 2025. Let alone that it would be from groovy...
Bernard Hughes
Friday, 01 August 2025
Arvo Pärt was into his 40s before he made had his Big Musical Idea: simplicity. He has spent the subsequent half-century pursuing this ideal, largely through the religious choral...
Gary Naylor
Friday, 01 August 2025
After 76 years, you’d have thought they could’ve come up with a better story! Okay, that’s a cheap jibe and, given the elusive nature of really strong books in stage musicals, not...
Markie Robson-Scott
Friday, 01 August 2025
Floria (the superb Leonie Benesch: The Crown; The Teachers’ Lounge; September 5) is a nurse, working the severely...
David Kettle
Friday, 01 August 2025
Alright Sunshine, Pleasance Dome ★★★★★Edinburgh writer Isla Cowan’s deceptively powerful solo show begins as an almost...
Adam Sweeting
Friday, 01 August 2025
The original Naked Gun series (spun off from the Police Squad! TV show) brought reliable belly-laughs to the Eighties and...
Thomas H Green
Friday, 01 August 2025
The stage musical update of Mean Girls, and the film adaptation, pushed Reneé Rapp into the public eye. She played queen...
Adam Sweeting
Thursday, 31 July 2025
Readers of Richard Flanagan’s Booker-winning novel will be familiar with its themes of war, extreme suffering, ageing,...
Bernard Hughes
Thursday, 31 July 2025
According to the programme, Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra is heard somewhere around the world every other week. In...
Helen Hawkins
Thursday, 31 July 2025
Following confirmation that he was the owner of the bones found in a Leicester car park in 2012, Richard III has never been...
Pamela Jahn
Thursday, 31 July 2025
To get Lars Eidinger "right", one must take him cloven hoof and all. He's intense, unconventional, and driven – but by what...
James Mellen
Thursday, 31 July 2025
Cian Ducrot cut his teeth on a blend of intimate singer-songwriter balladry and lowkey alt-pop, most of his debut album...
Matt Wolf
Wednesday, 30 July 2025
Would Jamie Lloyd's mind-bending revival of Evita win through twice in four weeks, I wondered to myself, paraphrasing a Tim...
Gary Naylor
Wednesday, 30 July 2025
As the nation basks in the reflected glory of The Lionesses' Euro25 victory, it could hardly be more timely for the...
Kieron Tyler
Wednesday, 30 July 2025
It’s not foregrounded, but as Strangest Feeling beds in after repeated listens it becomes clear that one of its core traits...
David Nice
Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Life-changing? That's how the Pärnu Music Festival felt on my first visit in 2015, alongside the discovery of Estonia...
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disc of the day
Album: Mansur Brown - Rihla
Jazz-prog scifi mind movies and personal discipline provide a... complex experience
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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
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, BBC One review - love, death and hell on the Burma railway
Richard Flanagan's prize-winning novel becomes a gruelling TV series
The Waterfront, Netflix review - fish, drugs and rock'n'roll
Kevin Williamson's Carolinas crime saga makes addictive viewing
theartsdesk Q&A: writer and actor Mark Gatiss on 'Bookish'
The multi-talented performer ponders storytelling, crime and retiring to run a bookshop
film
Late Shift review - life and death in an understaffed Swiss hospital
Petra Volpe directs Leonie Benesch in a compelling medical drama
The Naked Gun review - farce, slapstick and crass stupidity
Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson put a retro spin on the Police Squad files
theartsdesk Q&A: actor Lars Eidinger on 'Dying' and loving the second half of life
The German star talks about playing the director's alter ego in a tormented family drama
new music
Album: Mansur Brown - Rihla
Jazz-prog scifi mind movies and personal discipline provide a... complex experience
Album: Reneé Rapp - Bite Me
Second album from a rising US star is a feast of varied, fruity, forthright pop
Album: Cian Ducrot - Little Dreaming
Second album for the Irish singer aims for mega mainstream, ends up confused
classical
theartsdesk at the Three Choirs Festival - Passion in the Cathedral
Cantatas new and old, slate quarries to Calvary
BBC Proms: Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Kaljuste review - Arvo Pärt 90th birthday tribute
Stillness and contemplation characterise this well sung late-nighter
BBC Proms: Kholodenko, BBCNOW, Otaka review - exhilarating Lutosławski, underwhelming Rachmaninov
Polish composers to the fore in veteran conductor’s farewell
opera
Buxton International Festival 2025 review - a lavish offering of smaller-scale work
Allison Cook stands out in a fascinating integrated double bill of Bernstein and Poulenc
Tosca, Clonter Opera review - beauty and integrity in miniature
Happy surprises and a convincing interpretation of Puccini for today
Hamlet, Buxton International Festival review - how to re-imagine re-imagined Shakespeare
Music comes first in very 19th century, very Romantic, very French operatic creation
theatre
Top Hat, Chichester Festival Theatre review - top spectacle but book tails off
Glitz and glamour in revived dance show based on Fred and Ginger's movie
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Alright Sunshine / K Mak at the Planetarium / PAINKILLERS
Three early Fringe theatre shows offer blissed-out beats, identity questions and powerful drama
The Daughter of Time, Charing Cross Theatre review - unfocused version of novel that cleared Richard III
The writer did impressive research but shouldn't have fleshed out Josephine Tey’s story
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
Giselle, National Ballet of Japan review - return of a classic, refreshed and impeccably danced
First visit by Miyako Yoshida's company leaves you wanting more
Quadrophenia, Sadler's Wells review - missed opportunity to give new stage life to a Who classic
The brilliant cast need a tighter score and a stronger narrative
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
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
Natalia Ginzburg: The City and the House review - a dying art
Dick Davis renders this analogue love-letter in polyphonic English
Tom Raworth: Cancer review - truthfulness
A 'lost' book reconfirms Raworth’s legacy as one of the great lyric poets
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
Sir Brian Clarke (1953-2025) - a personal tribute
Remembering an artist with a gift for the transcendent
Emily Kam Kngwarray, Tate Modern review - glimpses of another world
Pictures that are an affirmation of belonging
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