theartsdesk.com @theartsdesk

Thin Lizzy, 74-75 - Night Life / Fighting: Expanding the parameters of Rock Bliss it was to be a fan of Thin Lizzy 50 years ago, in November 1975. Phil Lynott referred to fans as “supporters”, an apt term given Lizzy were followed with a level of partisan fervour generally re...

★★★★ Thin Lizzy, 74-75 - Night Life / Fighting: Expanding the parameters of Rock - John Carvill reviews a seven CD set tracking Thin Lizzy's evolution from good to great www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/th...

21.11.2025 10:15 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Snarky Puppy’s ‘Somni’ explores the realm of dreams with collaborators Metropole Orkest In the main, it could be assumed that Snarky Puppy’s bandleader, Michael League sleeps soundly in his bed every night. For sure, his band’s latest collaboration with Jules Buckley’s Metropole Orkest f...

★★★ Snarky Puppy’s ‘Somni’ explores the realm of dreams with collaborators Metropole Orkest writes Guy Oddy www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/sn...

21.11.2025 10:13 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Cabaret Voltaire, XOYO, Birmingham review - the Cabs revisit their glorious 80s purple patch This week, UK electronica originals Cabaret Voltaire hit Birmingham on their penultimate tour before they finally put their synthesizers into storage and call it quits this time next year. For a band ...

★★★★★ Cabaret Voltaire revisit their glorious 80s purple patch,XOYO, Birmingham: Guy Oddy reviews www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/ca...

21.11.2025 10:12 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Claire-Louise Bennett: Big Kiss, Bye-Bye review - a thousand conversations Strictly speaking, an epistolary novel tells more than one story. You could say, for example, that Dracula is “about” a collection of letters and diary entries and in the same vein, that Claire-Louise...

★★★★ Claire-Louise Bennett’s virtuosic prose returns to ponder intimacy, but treads some old ground writes Claudia Bull on Big Kiss, Bye-Bye @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social www.theartsdesk.com/books/claire...

21.11.2025 10:08 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Loop, Theatre 503 review - strongly written but a bit slender Obsession makes for good drama. Looking back over 30 years of in-yer-face theatre in general and female monologues in particular – anything from Fleabag to Superhoe – I’m struck by the power of the in...

★★★ Obsession makes for good drama writes @sierz.bsky.social but Loop, Theatre 503 could be fuller and more detailed www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/loop...

21.11.2025 10:05 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Keaton Henson's 'Parader': too much of a dark thing? Keaton Henson is a master of dark introspection and unashamed vulnerability, a 21st century manifestation of what used to be called bed-sit blues. There isn’t a shred of extrovert joy in his latest al...

★★★ Keaton Henson's 'Parader': too much of a dark thing? Mark Kidel reviews www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/ke...

20.11.2025 09:59 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Mélanie Pain’s solo album ‘How and Why’ stands apart from her involvement in Nouvelle Vague Strings swirl. A flute drifts like a bird floating on warm air.

★★★ Mélanie Pain’s solo album ‘How and Why’ stands apart from her involvement in Nouvelle Vague writes @kierontyler.bsky.social www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/me...

19.11.2025 09:21 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Blu-ray: Object Z Quite why this dialogue-heavy monochrome science fiction series was first broadcast in a teatime children’s slot is outlined in TV historian Jon Dear’s booklet essay accompanying this BFI reissue. Wri...

★★★★Thoughtful micro-budget British sci-fi, deservedly revived on blu-ray: @grahamrickson.bsky.social reviews Object Z a children's period piece from ITV www.theartsdesk.com/tv/blu-ray-o...

18.11.2025 09:18 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Orange Juice were “15-year-olds trying to play like Ry Cooder." The full story of electropop-inclined duo Leisure Process is told by The Complete Epic Recordings. Out on @cherryredrecords.bsky.social. I’ve looked at it today for @theartsdesk.bsky.social: www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/mu...

16.11.2025 08:49 — 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

Tim Key, Wilton's Music Hall review - the woes of hitting middle age Tim Key, besuited and wearing a baseball cap, stands on stage as the audience files in, smiling sweetly as people take their seats. He’s on stage but, in keeping with many of the acting roles that non...

★★★★ The woes of hitting middle age: Tim Key excels at storytelling that playfully wrongfoots the audience writes Veronica Lee at Wilton's Music Hall www.theartsdesk.com/comedy/tim-k...

17.11.2025 09:28 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Jason Gould's 'Where We Fall': all a bit bland Barbra Streisand has given her blessing to Where We Fall (Backwards Dog Records), an album of six covers and five original songs. She wrote to her 1.8 million Instagram followers: "[Jason] just gave m...

★★ All a bit bland: Jason Gould's 'Where We Fall' fails to ignite writes Sebastian Scotney www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/ja...

17.11.2025 09:25 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Nuremberg review - history's worst criminals go on trial It's hard to criticise a movie that opens with a shot of an Allied G.I. spitting and urinating on a Nazi insignia, but that moment of smug satisfaction (Nazi punks must die!) is fleeting. Nuremberg, w...

★★★★ 'Goering is like a virus looking for a host, and the trial offers him the chance to infect the world': history's worst criminals go on trial in James Vanderbilt's Nuremberg, with Russell Crowe as Goering, Justine Elias reviews www.theartsdesk.com/film/nurembe...

15.11.2025 11:27 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

After Sunday, Bush Theatre review - powerfully authentic, but not fully satisfying New writing for the theatre is good at taking us into the darkest of places – and there are few more painful environments than prisons and mental institutions. Places where agony radiates off the wall...

★★★ Powerfully authentic, but not fully satisfying: After Sunday, Bush Theatre a new play about cooking therapy in a secure hospital is an uncertain mix of comedy and cruelty writes @sierz.bsky.social www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/afte...

15.11.2025 09:54 — 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

La Nuova Musica, Bates, St Martin-in-the-Fields review - period of passion Mozart’s unfinished C Minor mass lacks a canonical completion of the sort that Süssmayr so famously – and still contentiously – imposed on the Requiem. Even without its Agnus Dei and chunks of the Cre...

★★★★ Drama and drive in Mozart's great unfinished mass: La Nuova Musica, Bates, St Martin-in-the-Fields, review by @boydtonkin.bsky.social www.theartsdesk.com/classical-mu...

15.11.2025 09:51 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey, Whitechapel Gallery review - a quiet resistance The title of Joy Gregory’s Whitechapel exhibition is inspired by a proverb her mother used to quote – “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar” – and her aim is to seduce rather than harangue the...

★★★ A quiet resistance - but perhaps too quite says Sarah Kent, reviewing Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey, Whitechapel Gallery www.theartsdesk.com/visual-arts/...

14.11.2025 08:13 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Coven, Kiln Theatre review - more toil needed to rescue trouble with the book Hamilton may have helped the West End recover from The Covid Years, but it carries its share of blame too. Perhaps that’s not strictly fair on some of its spawn, but do we get Coven without that music...

★★ More toil needed: Coven at Kiln Theatre disappoints says @garynaylor85.bsky.social www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/cove...

14.11.2025 08:10 — 👍 1 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

Riga Music Week review - blues-infused shoegazing, full-force folk, synth-pop thrills and more in Latvia’s capital The first live performance at the inaugural Riga Music Week is by Saucējas. This seven-piece vocal ensemble is avowedly Latvian. Formed in 2003 at the Latvian Academy of Culture, their singing, though...

Riga Music Week review - blues-infused shoegazing, full-force folk, synth-pop thrills and more in Latvia’s capital @kierontyler.bsky.social reports www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/ri...

14.11.2025 08:08 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

The Bug vs Ghost Dub's 'Implosion' collaboration is atmospheric and sinister Implosion is a purely instrumental, collaborative album of cinematic, dystopian sounds from dubstepper and extreme electronica experimentalist the Bug and his pal Ghost Dubs. However, rather than work...

★★★The Bug vs Ghost Dub's 'Implosion' collaboration is atmospheric and sinister says Guy Oddy www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/bu...

14.11.2025 08:06 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

The Hunger Games, Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre review - are the odds in its favour? As a proposition, this production raises the immediate questions how, and why? While Suzanne Collins’s young adult series of books were logically and successfully adapted for the screen, a futuristic ...

★★★ Lavish adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ dystopian adventure The Hunger Games, Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre asks the how and the why writes Demetrios Matheiou www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/hung...

14.11.2025 07:21 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Dead Man Walking, English National Opera review - simply stunning At least two facts stare us unflinchingly in the face here. For all the programme’s harping on how “everyone has their own view about the death penalty,” I don’t think there was any doubt in the audie...

★★★★★ Simply stunning: Heggie’s Death Row opera at English National Opera has a superb cast led by Christine Rice and Michael Mayes, @davidnice.bsky.social reviews Dead Man Walking www.theartsdesk.com/opera/dead-m...

13.11.2025 13:55 — 👍 9 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 1

theartsdesk Q&A: Toby Jones on 'Mr Burton' and 'Mr Bates Versus the Post Office' He wouldn't teach English, Toby Jones says. But drama? "Maybe," he pauses, "drama in the widest possible sense of the word, because it is an ever-expanding field, I suppose." It's certainly an excitin...

Toby Jones on 'Mr Burton' and 'Mr Bates Versus the Post Office': the formidable character actor talks to Pamela Jahn about mentorship, masculinity, and the importance of 'self-persuasion' www.theartsdesk.com/film/thearts...

13.11.2025 10:03 — 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

Anna Ancher: Painting Light, Dulwich Picture Gallery review - intimate gems Regarded as one of Denmark’s most important artists, Anna Ancher is virtually unknown here, so this overview of her paintings is a revelation as well as a delight. At roughly the same time, in the 188...

★★★★ Intimate gems: Dulwich Picture Gallery's exhibition of one of Denmark's most celebrated artists is a revelation as well as a delight says Sarah Kent, at Anna Ancher: Painting Light www.theartsdesk.com/visual-arts/...

13.11.2025 10:01 — 👍 10 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

Carice Singers, Parris, St Giles, Cripplegate review - 90th birthday concert also celebrates younger composer I have always been a bit ambivalent about the music of Arvo Pärt, recognising his achievement in crafting a new kind of choral music, while often finding it hard to love, especially in large doses.

★★★★ Carice Singers, Parris, St Giles, Cripplegate celebrate Arvo Part's 90th birthday with Evelin Seppar an intriguing point of comparison writes @bernardhughes.bsky.social www.theartsdesk.com/classical-mu...

13.11.2025 09:57 — 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

Celeste is a 'Woman of Faces' - but not that many It’s really interesting to see how Amy Winehouse’s legacy continues to reverberate – and not just through endlessly repeated iconography or the tragedy-for-sale machine that’s built around her but mus...

★★★ 'Any given song is great', but Celeste's 'Woman of Faces' is short on variety writes @joemuggs.bsky.social www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/ce...

13.11.2025 09:45 — 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

THE ROLLING STONES - BLACK & BLUE turns 50 with a new reissue - one of their best-sounding classic LPs comes with live sets, rare film and dodgy studio jams, says @timcumming.bsky.social www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/ro...

12.11.2025 11:09 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

#Britten Weekend 2025, #Snape and #Aldeburgh - White Rose, red poppy: superbly sequenced memorials balancing anger and reflection - @davidnice.bsky.social appreciates two of the finest small-scale concerts he's heard this year, on the theme of remembrance www.theartsdesk.com/classical-mu...

12.11.2025 10:50 — 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

#RizAhmed and #LilyJames soulfully connect in sly, lean corporate whistleblowing thriller RELAY - director #DavidMackenzie and cast keep the conceit’s heart beating, says Nick Hasted www.theartsdesk.com/film/relay-r...

11.11.2025 18:12 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

FATHERLAND #HampsteadTheatre - #NancyFarino's debut is a meditation on responsibility and emotional heritage - it's psychologically convincing, but lacking fullness, says @sierz.bsky.social theartsdesk.com/theatre/fath...

11.11.2025 17:57 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

★★★★ #PeterMoore #BBCPhilharmonic #ElenaSchwarz @bridgewaterhall.bsky.social - Rich rewards in heavyweight works, with a look back to the Covid experience in #DaniHoward’s approachable and attractive #Trombone Concerto - review @robertbealemcr.bsky.social theartsdesk.com/classical-mu...

11.11.2025 17:51 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

APOLOGIES! Coverage on The Arts Desk @theartsdesk.bsky.social has been disrupted in recent days, as we are moving to a new technical system. Please bear with us, we hope to resume normal service soon! Thank you for your understanding!

11.11.2025 14:43 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

theartsdesk.com

Latest posts by theartsdesk.bsky.social on Bluesky

@theartsdesk is following 20 prominent accounts