Tamasha play about a Punjabi family-run salon could do with a makeover Theatre is slowly recovering from the effects of the pandemic " and many shows which were cancelled because of the fir…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:48PM[SHARE]David Eldridge's follow up to his 2017 hit, 'Beginning', is disappointing The traditional, and much derided, well-made play is meant to have a beginning, middle and end. Although playwright …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:12AM[SHARE]Dominic Cooke's imaginative revival improves on Emlyn Williams's 1938 play Let's talk repertoire. Over the past decade the range of British plays, especially those from the 17th, 18th and 1…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:06PM[SHARE]Ruth Wilson is brilliant in Jean Cocteau classic adapted by Ivo van Hove Is there really such a thing as an unmissable show? Depends on your taste of course, but for sheer hype this event ta…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:18PM[SHARE]High-energy revival of Mike Bartlett's 2009 play boasts a dynamic cast Mike Bartlett's Cock invites suggestive comments, but the main thing about the play is that it has proved to be a magn…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:12PM[SHARE]Intriguing new play from Ron Hutchinson capsizes in performance You can't keep a great playwright down. Ron Hutchinson, whose award winning stage plays, such as Rat in the Skull (1984) and …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:42PM[SHARE]Great staging enlivens this well-written monologue about a cross-generational relationship Love is the most difficult four-letter word. And platonic love is perhaps the hardest kind of emot…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:48PM[SHARE]Debut play about football and gentrification is pitch perfect Football stories are never just about a game " they are also about life and how to live it. In Tyrell Williams's Red Pitch, his…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:12PM[SHARE]Misogynoir gets the song and satire treatment in a short but powerful show Black women often find themselves subject to a double dose of prejudice. Pressure. They face everyday racism as we…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:06PM[SHARE]Energetic debut monologue explores eating disorders, personal identity and sex Irish teenager Saoirse Murphy has a dirty mouth. And she's not afraid to use it when talking to the nuns at he…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:18PM[SHARE]Time-travelling fantasia boasts a brilliant staging and a spoof playtext essay Bizarre. Breathtaking. Beautiful. I leave the Royal Court theatre with these Bs, as well as others such as bewi…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:42PM[SHARE]Northern Ireland's contemporary problems get the meta treatment History is a prison. Often, you can't escape. It imprints its mark on people, environments and language. And nowhere is this …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:03PM[SHARE]Revival of American writer Alice Childress's 1955 anti-racist play shines bright The National Theatre has a good record in staging classic American drama by black playwrights. James Baldwin…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:48PM[SHARE]Moira Buffini's state-of-the-nation, climate-change play runs into the doldrums After all the tides of monologue plays have ebbed, British new writing is now paddling in the pools of state-o…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:32PM[SHARE]Roy Williams and Clint Dyer bring their monologue sequence to a triumphant conclusion One of the absolute highpoints of new writing in the past couple of years has been the Death of England …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:12PM[SHARE]Al Smith's new play was jinxed before it started " and it never really recovers Why are we indifferent to anti-Semitism? In the past few weeks the Royal Court, a proud citadel of wokeness, h…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:42PM[SHARE]Powerful play about masculinity in crisis fails to reach a satisfying resolution After lockdown, the stage monologue saved British theatre. At venue after venue, cash-strapped companies put…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:24PM[SHARE]New play about love during the Bosnian war is beautifully written and compelling Is the Bosnian conflict of 1992"95 the war that Europe forgot? Maybe, although most fans of new writing for t…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:54PM[SHARE]New play about gentrification could be regenerated with a make-over I've lived in Brixton, south London, for about 40 years now so any play that looks at the gentrification of the area is, …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:54PM[SHARE]Saoirse Ronan makes her UK stage debut in Yaël Farber's testosterone-fest Remembering the months of lockdown, I can't be the only person to thrill to this play's opening lines, "When sha…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:18PM[SHARE]Larry Kramer's modern AIDS classic retains all of its passionate glory Hypocrisy. Is this the right word? I don't mean the play, but the audience. Of course, in the middle of the current COV…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:54PM[SHARE]Aleshea Harris's award-winning play is a thrillingly satirical mash up God is a tricky one. Or should that be One? And definitely not a He. So when she says take revenge, then vengeance is …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:12PM[SHARE]Sombre revival of Shelagh Stephenson's 1996 classic about three sisters Memories are notoriously treacherous " this we know. I remember seeing Shelagh Stephenson's contemporary classic at th…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:18PM[SHARE]Poetic play about enslaved peoples and Victorian painter JMW Turner For more than three decades, playwright Winsome Pinnock has been at the forefront of new writing, often experimenting wit…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:24PM[SHARE]A 4,000-year-old poem reopens this venue, but is more educational than dramatic The Young Vic, led by the inspiring figure of Kwame Kwei-Armah, is back. After a prolonged closure, during whi…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:06PM[SHARE]David Mamet's most controversial play retains its explosive charge Before seeing this play, I decided to eat a steak. It seemed the right culinary equivalent to David Mamet, one of America'…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:03PM[SHARE]Ambitious triptych examines the themes of Empire, race and parenthood It is an index of the ambition of some venues that they are not only reopening their doors, but also staging plays that…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:12PM[SHARE]Debut play about siblings, climate change and space travel is full of ideas There's something definitely inspiring about producer Sonia Friedman's decision to reopen one of her prime West E…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:03AM[SHARE]New monologue is a complex and ambiguous account of a digital obsession After months of watching theatre on screens large, medium and tiny, I definitely feel great about going to see a live…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:24PM[SHARE]Philip Ridley's new monologue is a dazzling masterclass in storytelling I think I can safely say that polymath playwright Philip Ridley has had a good lockdown. In March last year, when The…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:06PM[SHARE]Mark Ravenhill's new play is a fragmentary audio autobiography Does a subjective theatre piece encourage a subjective critical response? I think it might, especially when it's a memory play…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:18PM[SHARE]
