Tuesday, June 13, 2023
A winning ensemble led by Jamie Parker deliver a refreshing piece
The short story F Scott Fitzgerald wrote as a challenge, of a man born 70 years old whose body gets younger as the years pas…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:43AM[SHARE]Saturday, June 10, 2023
A bravura turn from Andy Karl propels a tricky piece over its self-created speed bumps
Groundhog Day, appropriately, is back where it started. The hit film about a TV weatherman's endlessly …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:55AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 8, 2023
Forgotten Miles Malleson play deserves its revival
Miles Malleson, known as an inter-war character actor who popped up in numerous small roles on stage and screen, was also a surprisingly p…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:49AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 1, 2023
The Master's life seen close up but with no warts
Devoted fans may not learn anything that new about Noel Coward from Barnaby Thompson's documentary Mad About the Boy, but they will doubtles…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:06AM[SHARE]Dickie Beau creates a tribute to past Hamlets, one in particular
Lip-syncing has become the hobby of many a young TikToker, but only an intrepid professional would contemplate using the tech…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:18AM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Nikhil Parmar delivers his play with passion and wit
The Bond film theme plays and the lights go up at the Bush's Studio space to reveal, not a tuxedoed superspy, but a slim figure in casua…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:12AM[SHARE]Thursday, May 11, 2023
Five actors plus loads of silly hats and accents add up to a hilarious evening
It's back yet again, Operation Mincemeat, a gift of a story that goes on giving. It surfaced as the 1956 film T…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:12AM[SHARE]Monday, May 8, 2023
The Windrush scandal embodied with wrenching power
Reggae hits are already playing over the speaker system at the Bush when the audience enters, some jigging to the sounds as they find their…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:36AM[SHARE]Saturday, April 29, 2023
Bizarre directorial choices derail the play's serious content
There was a jolting eco-themed work onstage in London recently, but sadly A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction, a Headl…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:36AM[SHARE]Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Lynn Nottage and a faultless cast offer a story that's a hymn to hope
The cast of The Secret Life of Bees first parade onto the Almeida stage hefting big glass storage jars full of a golden …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:54AM[SHARE]Saturday, April 22, 2023
Giles Terera delivers a dramatic lecture on the legacy of slavery
There's a moment in the opening stretch of Giles Terera's The Meaning of Zong where you think the former Hamilton star has …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:12AM[SHARE]Saturday, April 8, 2023
Eugene O'Hare treads familiar ground with his confessional about alcoholism
Eugene O'Hare's The Dry House is the kind of spare but oddly lyrical three-hander that would have made a good Wedn…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:06AM[SHARE]Monday, April 3, 2023
A terrific ensemble make an exhilarating plea for Black boys with blighted lives
For a show that comes with a trigger warning about the themes of racism, gang violence, toxic relationships, …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:24AM[SHARE]Saturday, March 18, 2023
Pulitzer finalist asks how good an ally is modern technology
Artificial intelligence has become an even hotter topic since Jordan Harrison's Marjorie Prime was first staged in Los Angeles in…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:57AM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Nicholas Hytner and a crack cast deliver a fresh take on the classic musical
It now seems an inevitability that Marisha Wallace will be a frontrunner at next year's theatre awards, not just…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:55AM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 8, 2023
It's more adult panto than mature musical, with the sauce liberally ladled on
If you are hoping for some harmless fun at The Great British Bake Off Musical, probably with a few dodgy jokes a…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:41AM[SHARE]Monday, March 6, 2023
A vivacious cast are great fun to hang out with
Can a play ever be a bit too much like real life? The thought came to me while watching Matilda Feyisayo Ibini's entertaining new play Sleepo…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:49AM[SHARE]Wednesday, February 22, 2023
Michael John O'Neill's debut stirs up questions but not emotions
Michael John O'Neill's first full-length play, premiering at the Hampstead's studio space downstairs, is a puzzler. There's t…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:58AM[SHARE]Monday, February 20, 2023
Affecting revival of Tom Kempinski play about an ailing musician and her therapist
This 1981 two-hander was opened out for a film in 1986, starring Julie Andrews no less, with all its offst…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:33AM[SHARE]Wednesday, February 15, 2023
The dark arts of diplomacy get a makeover as a comedy workshop
Who better to write a piece about the game-playing of a peace-talks negotiation than a former peace-talk negotiator, Daniel Tau…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:23AM[SHARE]Friday, February 3, 2023
Danny Robins' clever play gains a creditable star turn in its fifth run
The set of 2:22 A Ghost Story is open to the auditorium when we arrive and locates us at once in gentrification-land. …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:16AM[SHARE]Monday, January 30, 2023
Shakespeare's tragedy as a tight thriller, with its racist elements fully exposed
Frantic Assembly's Othello, originally co-developed with the Lyric in 2008, is back in its third iteration, …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:16AM[SHARE]Friday, January 27, 2023
Told by an Idiot return with a celebration of silent-movie antics and daft gags
Imagine what would have happened if the young Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel were cabin-mates on a transatlan…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, January 14, 2023
A cast with an infectious gift for fun give this French confection a touch of stage magic
First came Yasmin Reza's 1994 long-runner Art; now another French hit, The Art of Illusion, has arri…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:22AM[SHARE]Saturday, December 10, 2022
Clint Dyer's new take makes Othello a victim of mob mentality
Clint Dyer is the first black director of Othello at the National Theatre, a venue that once staged the piece with its actor …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:06AM[SHARE]Thursday, December 8, 2022
Jonathan Slinger commands the stage in this dark, funny monologue
The American author of The Sarah Book, on which the monologue Sarah is based, is called Scott McClanahan, as is his main cha…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:48AM[SHARE]Friday, December 2, 2022
Tania Nwachukwu creates a warm hour of music and memories with hidden bite
The Bush studio space is proving a fruitful launch pad, not just for new writing but for new performers. It previo…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:36AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Absurdly romantic notions about love and war have never been funnier
For his final bow as artistic director of the Orange Tree, Paul Miller has decided to go out with a bang, amid much gigg…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:48AM[SHARE]Friday, November 25, 2022
Frank McGuinness's new play about T S Eliot and Groucho Marx is a poetic puzzle
The set at the Arcola for Frank McGuinness's Dinner with Groucho naturally features a table with two place set…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:18AM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 2, 2022
★★★★ ELEPHANT, BUSH STUDIO Stirring solo show from rising star Anoushka Lucas
A beguiling debut play with both charm and an angry message
It lasts only an interval-fr…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:12AM[SHARE]Saturday, October 22, 2022
Pearl Cleage's play about thwarted dreams in Prohibition era Harlem gets a stellar production
The cynical might think Pearl Cleage's play had been expressly written to address the over-ridin…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:07AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
