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Theartsdesk
Wednesday, 01 October 2025
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.It followed some hectic and intensive months when a disparate and eclectic...
David Nice
Saturday, 03 May 2025
Full marks to the Royal Opera for good planning: one first night knocking us all sideways with the darkest German operatic tragedy followed by another letting us off the hook with...
Helen Hawkins
Saturday, 03 May 2025
In the Stygian darkness of a bare room, a table on a low platform with a light hanging overhead starts to emerge. Then a door briefly opens at the back of the space and the figure...
Adam Sweeting
Saturday, 03 May 2025
The success of Netflix’s Drive to Survive not only provoked a viewer-stampede towards the world’s most expensive sport, but also triggered a chain reaction of similar behind-the-...
Graham Rickson
Friday, 02 May 2025
Jürg Frey: Voices EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble/James Weeks (Neu Records)A new CD from EXAUDI is a guaranteed treat for all the senses: the sound quality is always impeccable, the...
Sarah Kent
Friday, 02 May 2025
A traditional Korean house has appeared at Tate Modern. And with its neat brickwork, beautifully carved roof beams and lattice work screens, this charming dwelling looks decidedly...
David Nice
Friday, 02 May 2025
Wagner’s universe, in the second of his Ring operas which brings semi-humans on board to challenge the gods, matches...
Sebastian Scotney
Friday, 02 May 2025
Does it spark joy? Yes, definitely...and maybe we music critics should ask the Marie Kondo question more often. London-based...
Helen Hawkins
Friday, 02 May 2025
The makers of The Extraordinary Miss Flower are billing it as a “performance film”, a subspecies of the concert-movie and...
Kathryn Reilly
Friday, 02 May 2025
Purporting to be a documentary about John Lennon in the 1970s, Borrowed Time is no such thing. Instead, we have a lot of fan...
Ellie Roberts
Friday, 02 May 2025
PUP’s Who Will Look After The Dogs? is a raw and emotionally charged album that captures the band’s chaotic spirit while...
Matt Wolf
Thursday, 01 May 2025
It's both brave and bracing to welcome new voices to the West End, but sometimes one wonders if such exposure necessarily...
Amelia Coburn
Thursday, 01 May 2025
“Sandra” is one of my favourite tracks from my album Between The Moon and the Milkman which was released last year. ...
Mark Kidel
Thursday, 01 May 2025
On the eve of recording an album at Real World Studios, guitarist Adrian Utley and the American trumpet player Eddie...
Liz Thomson
Thursday, 01 May 2025
Wow, can it really be 40 years since Solitude Standing, the second studio album by Suzanne Vega who put the 1980s folk...
Helen Hawkins
Wednesday, 30 April 2025
Patrick Marber’s powerful debut about gambling men is 30 years old, born as the Eighties entrepreneurial boom was starting...
Rachel Halliburton
Wednesday, 30 April 2025
When Giuseppe Torelli made the journey from his birthplace of Verona to Bologna in the late 17th century, the trumpet was...
Pamela Jahn
Wednesday, 30 April 2025
"Julie's story takes place everywhere", says the writer-director Leonardo Van Dijl, whose psychological drama Julie...
Kieron Tyler
Wednesday, 30 April 2025
Over its crisp 32 minutes and nine songs, Altogether Stranger embraces electropop, lo-fi terrain and gothic solo...
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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
Formula E: Driver, Prime Video review - inside the world's first zero-carbon sport
F1's electric baby brother get its own documentary series
Flintoff, Disney+ review - tumultuous life and times of the great all-rounder
John Dower's documentary is gritty, gruelling and uplifting
Your Friends & Neighbors, Apple TV+ review - in every dream home a heartache
Jon Hamm finds his best role since 'Mad Men'
film
The Extraordinary Miss Flower review - odd mashup of music, dance, film and spoken word
A cache of love letters inspires samey songs and not enough wonder
Borrowed Time: Lennon's Last Decade review - how the great man spent his thirties
The former Beatle's final years discussed and dissected
theartsdesk Q&A: director Leonardo Van Dijl discusses his sexual abuse drama 'Julie Keeps Quiet'
The Belgian filmmaker unfolds an all too familiar tragedy in the world of tennis
new music
Georgia Mancio, Alan Broadbent, Pizza Express Dean Street review - songs beautifully crafted
Gloriously personal expression
First Person: rising folk star Amelia Coburn on her French inspiration
The Middlesbrough singer-songwriter on the background story to her latest single
classical
Classical CDs: Chinese poetry, rollercoasters and old bookshops
Swiss contemporary music, plus two cello albums and a versatile clarinettist remembered
La Serenissima, Wigmore Hall review - a convivial guide to 18th century Bologna
This showcase for baroque trumpets was riveting throughout
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Isata Kanneh-Mason, Wigmore Hall review - family fun, fire and finesse
Intimacy and empathy in a varied mixture from the star siblings
opera
Pimpinone, Royal Opera in the Linbury Theatre review - farce with a sting in its tail
Telemann’s comic opera hits the mark thanks to two fine, well-directed young singers
Die Walküre, Royal Opera review - total music drama
Kosky, Pappano and their singers soar on both wings of Wagner’s double tragedy
theatre
Krapp's Last Tape, Barbican review - playing with the lighter side of Beckett's gloom
The Irish actor Stephen Rea is a silent-movie Krapp to treasure
My Master Builder, Wyndham's Theatre review - Ewan McGregor headlines stillborn Ibsen riff
Starry new writing premiere struggles to connect
Dealer's Choice, Donmar Warehouse review - fresh take on a classic about male self-destruction
An ideal revisiting of Patrick Marber's play about risking all to move ahead
dance
The Forsythe Programme, English National Ballet review - brains, beauty and bravura
Once again the veteran choreographer and maverick William Forsythe raises ENB's game
Sad Book, Hackney Empire review - What we feel, what we show, and the many ways we deal with sadness
A book about navigating grief feeds into unusual and compelling dance theatre
comedy
Greg Davies, Brighton Dome review - chocolate bars and errant bumholes
Taskmaster's first tour in seven years is a joy
Marcus Brigstocke, Touring review - modern manhood laid bare
Observations on what it is to be a bloke today
Books
Zsuzsanna Gahse: Mountainish review - seeking refuge
Notes on danger and dialogue in the shadow of the Swiss Alps
Patrick McGilligan: Woody Allen - A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham review - New York stories
Fair-minded Woody Allen biography covers all bases
visual arts
Do Ho Suh: Walk the House, Tate Modern review - memories are made of this
Home sweet home preserved as exquisite replicas
Ed Atkins, Tate Britain review - hiding behind computer generated doppelgängers
Emotions too raw to explore
latest comments
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the review doesn't match the score. you only have...
This rock solid testimony from his other son...
Tripla means Treble in hungarian, Three is Három...