Saturday, August 6, 2022
If you think a fat man wearing yellow swimming trunks is funny, you're on the right island
Alexei Sayle, in his angry young man phase, once said that you can always tell when you're watching…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:42AM[SHARE]Saturday, July 30, 2022
★ TASTING NOTES New musical set in a wine bar should have stayed in the cellarÂ
Not much goes right for a show whose characters are similarly ill-fated
LJ's dream has come tr…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:18AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 28, 2022
★★★★ SISTER ACT THE MUSICAL Event theatre and a sensational lead performance make the trip worthwhile
Crowdpleasing musical retains its glitz and charm (and cheese…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:03AM[SHARE]Saturday, July 23, 2022
★★★ THE DARKEST PART OF THE NIGHT, KILN Issues-led drama has its heart in the right place
The didactic vies with the dramatic in Zodwa Nyoni's incident-packed new play
Mu…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:33AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 21, 2022
★★★★CLOSER, LYRIC HAMMERSMITH Still sordid and sexy 25 years on
Lovers come together, split apart and come together again
Drama is writing in thin air, its content i…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:12AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 7, 2022
Fine acting and bleak humour barely ameliorates a grim slog through a broken relationship
Rebecca Lenkiewicz's adaptation of August Strindberg's 1900 paean to the power of loathing over lovi…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:12PM[SHARE]Friday, July 1, 2022
Claudia Rankine's 2018 play insists on raising difficult questionsÂ
Art and race intersect to provocative effect
We're in New York City, in an upscale loft apartment, with that absence of…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:18AM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 1, 2022
A classic play can still collapse time and space with its heartrending relevance
The stage is cluttered with objects; a pianola sits stage left; a large cabinet, soon to be revealed as a di…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:18AM[SHARE]Saturday, May 28, 2022
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Marina Carr's angry, poetic take on Clytemnestra's story is delivered in all its gory glory
Playwrights return to classical myths for two main reasons " to shine a light on how we live …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:06AM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 18, 2022
★★★★ GREASE, Dominion Theatre Nostalgia for the late 1950s and late 1970s underpins an entertaining show
Crowdpleaser pleases crowd: this High School musical deliv…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:07PM[SHARE]Saturday, May 14, 2022
★ JULIUS CAESAR, SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE Misjudged masterpiece Â
Intrusive 21st century agenda and dismal staging waste an opportunity
With tyrants licking their lips around the worl…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:54AM[SHARE]Thursday, April 21, 2022
Iconic couple shoot for West End success
One of the more irritating memes (it's a competitive field, I know) is the "Name a more iconic couple" appearing over a photo of Posh and Becks, or H…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:42AM[SHARE]Saturday, April 16, 2022
Swordplay and songs never quite hit their stride
Zorro (what a name!) is back, swashing and buckling his way into the West End, 13 years after he left and now not the only one wearing a mask…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:06AM[SHARE]Thursday, April 7, 2022
Political lesson on the dangers of populism fails to hit home
Loud madcap comedy morphs into mime and flops when it should fly
When Rhum + Clay conceived this show, the idea of a comic becom…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:12AM[SHARE]Thursday, March 10, 2022
Abigail Graham's pacy production focuses on the moneylender's fate
A supposed 'comedy' gives the moneylender Shylock pride of place
The Merchant of Venice is a comedy, you say? Shakespeare,…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:03AM[SHARE]Monday, March 7, 2022
Dennis Kelly's 2005 play presses many 2022 buttons
Lockdown, #MeToo and Ukraine give new urgency to a dystopian fable
Mark was teased about the fallout shelter at the bottom of his garden …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:36AM[SHARE]Friday, March 4, 2022
Another musical based on a movie hits London, with a moral guaranteed to please audiences
Wave your pom poms for a show with its heart in the right place
We open on "Seventeen is Swell", the…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:48AM[SHARE]Thursday, February 17, 2022
Few concessions to 21st century sensibilities, but a great night out
Iconic film on stage heats up the West End
Wind the clock back 45 years and the Big Apple was bankrupt, the lights had go…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:18AM[SHARE]Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Plodding book detailing a poet's sentimental education falls flat on stage
Somewhere in the world right now, one can hear Mister Mister's AOR hit, "Broken Wings" on an MOR radio station, cap…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:42AM[SHARE]Wednesday, January 19, 2022
★★★ THRILL ME:THE LEOPOLD & LOEB STORY Child killers seduce us with charisma and song
Child killers seduce us with charisma and song
There's a lot of True Crime stuff a…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:33AM[SHARE]Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Sir David Suchet reflects on his extraordinary careerÂ
Sir David Suchet takes us from school days to sleuth days
In the 80s, An Audience With... gave a television studio to an actor who …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:48AM[SHARE]Saturday, December 18, 2021
★★★★ THE TIGER LILLIES' CHRISTMAS CAROL: A VICTORIAN GUTTER, SOUTHBANK CENTRE Melancholy musical retelling laced with wit and political venom Â
The Tiger…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:24PM[SHARE]Monday, November 29, 2021
★★★ THE GOOD LIFE Nostalgic comedy with a surprising resonance 45 years onÂ
Tom, Barbara, Jerry and Margo are back in the '70s, but with a message for today
"Off-grid…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:03AM[SHARE]Friday, November 26, 2021
★★★ A Christmas Carol - Immersive Dickens production not quite a Christmas cracker
Stephen Mangan's Scrooge learns his lesson in imbalanced Dickens adaptation
Four year…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:42AM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 17, 2021
★★★★ VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE Comedy mines Chekhov for laughs and finds some rich seamsÂ
Super London debut for Russian-inspired Broadway comedy
Van…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:36AM[SHARE]Saturday, November 13, 2021
★★★★★ FOOTFALLS AND ROCKABY, Beckett's ferocious contemplations on the ebbing of life
Double bill finds the Irish master at his most raw
Like all great art, …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:42AM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 10, 2021
★★★★ MILK AND GALL, Baby turns New Yorkers' lives upside down, while Trump has a tantrum or twoÂ
No holds barred comedy lays bare the unsentimental side of pare…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:32PM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 9, 2021
★★★ THE CHOIR OF MAN, Decent blokes sing old school hits in an old school pub
Lots of songs and lots of sugary sentimentality
Like a previous occupant of this venue, Six…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:12PM[SHARE]Friday, October 29, 2021
★★★ THE MAGICIAN'S ELEPHANT, ROYAL SHAKESPEARE THEATRE A musical about trust and hope, and an unexpected elephant
An elephant awakens an emotionally shattered town
Trig…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:42PM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 26, 2021
★★ VANARA, HACKNEY EMPIRE Falls well short of its West Side Story inspired ambition
Two tribes feud over fire in a post-apocalyptic world's last surviving forest
Two tribes, …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:32AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 5, 2021
★★★★ WHAT IF IF ONLY Caryl Churchill's short play considers the despair of grief and the optimism of hope
A beautifully staged reflection on the pain of confronting l…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:42AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
