Thursday, September 25, 2014
In the context of recent events in Iraq and Syria, the spectre of the ill-fated Iraq War of 2003 looms large once more. What better time for a revival of master-playwright David Hare's story…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Royal Court, London: Tim Price specialises in telling true stories about radicals that end badly. After The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning (2012) and Protest S…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 07:37AM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Currently, the Royal Court is exploring the theme of revolution and resistance. In its studio space it is staging The Wolf from the Door, Rory Mullarkey's excellent absurdist fantasy of a ve…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PM[SHARE]Monday, September 22, 2014
Bush Theatre, London: Just as constitutional reform is being discussed in the wake of the Scottish referendum, Chris Thompson's follow-up to his debut Carthage examines the ugly side of…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:50AM[SHARE]Friday, September 19, 2014
Opening on the day after the Scottish Referendum, playwight Chris Thompson's new play has a timely, even incendiary, title. It also recalls the sad little song 'Albion' by Pete Doherty and B…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 17, 2014
The number of plays commemorating the outbreak of the First World War continues to grow, with some already falling casualty to critical fire or to rapidly waning audience interest. Taking th…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Few contemporary playwrights have enjoyed as many revivals as polymath Philip Ridley. The first two of his 1990s gothic East End trilogy " The Pitchfork Disney and The Fastest Clock in the U…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PM[SHARE]Friday, September 12, 2014
Wyndham's Theatre, London: Mike Bartlett's wonderfully imaginative "future history play" is the fourth West End transfer for the Almeida Theatre inside a year. Its artistic di…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:57AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Dramatic national events such as riots tend to attract verbatim theatre practitioners like smashed shop windows attract looters. In this new play, Alecky Blythe " who specialises in recordin…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:01PM[SHARE]Thursday, July 24, 2014
There is so much public anxiety about paedophiles on the internet that it's surprising that so few plays tackle the issue. Now Los Angeles playwright Jennifer Haley brings her new play on th…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:01PM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 23, 2014
While it is something of a cliché to be reminded that forgetting the past is a sure way of repeating it, the problems of the Middle East are so acute that this thought might be worth taking…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Olivier, National, London: Helen McCrory returns to the National Theatre in the title role of Euripides' play about a woman who kills her children in revenge for her husband Jason'…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:39AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 10, 2014
Plays about religious belief present something of a problem. How can theatre-makers, who tend to be very secular-minded, convey the mindset of believers without being patronising? And once t…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 1, 2014
When, before the great Miners' Strike of 1984-85, Britain still had a coal industry, the miner was at the centre of a never-ending class war: you saw him either as an honest proletarian, in …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PM[SHARE]Monday, June 30, 2014
The National Theatre delayed the opening of this play about newspapers for two weeks as it waited for the results of the phone-hacking trial. Is this what a tabloid would call "legal health …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PM[SHARE]Friday, June 20, 2014
Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London: Theatremaker Tim Crouch makes his main-stage debut at this venue with a new play that explores the world of contemporary art and questions the…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:52AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 19, 2014
Theatre-maker Tim Crouch has a thing about art. One of his plays, ENGLAND, was performed in art galleries across the world; another was called An Oak Tree, after the 1973 conceptual art piec…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:01PM[SHARE]Thursday, June 12, 2014
Some days, I feel very sorry for playwrights, especially those that become notorious through no fault of their own. If their most famous play causes enough controversy, it can take decades b…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:01PM[SHARE]Friday, June 6, 2014
National Theatre, London: Polly Stenham makes her National Theatre debut, after her runaway success at the Royal Court with That Face and its follow ups, Tusk Tusk and No Quarter. This time,…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:27AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 5, 2014
Posh hotels are good settings for drama. They look cool, feel alien and can soon acquire a sense of claustrophobic intensity. Most importantly, in real life they feel like stage sets. Playwr…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:01PM[SHARE]Friday, May 30, 2014
New writing for British stages has recently delivered several punchy plays that, having made their points, don't hang around for long afterwards. With a running time of 70 minutes, Rachel De…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:01PM[SHARE]Monday, May 19, 2014
When I first heard that the new play from Out of Joint was about the NHS I thought this might be a delayed result of the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics: all those prancing nurses su…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PM[SHARE]Friday, April 25, 2014
A play about belief? I must admit I was immediately intrigued. After all, most of the people I know are either atheists or don't usually talk about a world beyond our own. To use a hackneyed…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:00PM[SHARE]Tuesday, April 22, 2014
How careless are we about the details of our private life? Well, unsurprisingly the answer is "very". To make this point, playwright James Graham explores the subject not only by means of ve…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:00PM[SHARE]Friday, April 11, 2014
Almeida Theatre, London: Mike Bartlett makes his Almeida Theatre debut with this "future history play" set in the time when Prince Charles becomes king. As well as being based on a…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:38AM[SHARE]Thursday, April 10, 2014
Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London: Simon Stephens loves German theatre: ever since his collaboration with Sebastian Nubling on plays such as Pornography and Three Kingdoms, he h…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:45AM[SHARE]Wednesday, April 9, 2014
If rock is magic, then what about its creators? Are they wonderful magicians, or empty charlatans? Infused by the spirit of the Patti Smith song of the same name, playwright Simon Stephens's…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:00PM[SHARE]Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Are the 2010s a rerun of the 1980s? You know that familiar feeling of déjà vu: economic collapse, royal wedding and Tories in power. Not to mention privatization and the spirit of rampan…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:00PM[SHARE]Thursday, April 3, 2014
I must confess to feeling a warm tremble every time I hear "I Vow to Thee, My Country", a result of the potent mix of Gustav Holst's stately music and Cecily Spring Rice's allusive words. So…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:00PM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 26, 2014
How do you explore extremes of feeling on stage? In cult pen-master Philip Ridley's new play, a 75-minute monologue that won plaudits in Edinburgh last year, he takes us by the hand and thro…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:00PM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Political farces always start with a distinct disadvantage " the reality is so much sillier than the fictional version. Never mind, if anyone can make a stage comedy funny it is Ray Cooney, …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:00PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
