Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Lyttelton theatre, LondonMorals, sexual politics and hypocrisy are the big themes in this tragic psychological portrait of a man for whom ideals matter more than individuals Harley Granville…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Gate, LondonKate Mulvany and Anne-Louise Sarks's radical update of Euripides' tragedy shows events from the perspective of the heroine's two sonsEuripides' Medea has achieved such mythical s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:26AM[SHARE]Sunday, November 8, 2015
Garrick, LondonZoë Wanamaker is in soul-baring form in Rattigan double-bill depicting the actor-manager tradition the Branagh season is designed to subvertIronically, co-directors Rob Ash…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:50AM[SHARE]Garrick, LondonIn a production unafraid to hint at the darker elements of Shakespeare's fable, Branagh and Dench are surrounded by a first-rate teamThe image of the West End suddenly brighte…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:50AM[SHARE]Friday, November 6, 2015
Dominion, LondonBen Forster sleighs them as Buddy, the Christmas-loving Laplander set down in Manhattan with Girls Aloud's Kimberley Walsh, but this show doesn't so much invoke the festive s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:34AM[SHARE]Thursday, November 5, 2015
The Swan, Stratford-upon-AvonDirector Selina Cadell gives a fine cast room to breathe in this delightful RSC revival of the sharp-witted restoration comedyWhy is William Congreve's great 169…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:09AM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Olivier, LondonRosalie Craig gives us an eminently sane Rosalind in director Polly Findlay's richly textured version, where Lizzie Clachan's set is the starOur march towards a Germanic direc…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:20AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Southwark Playhouse, London The tender bond between a girl and her carer illuminates the debate about the ethics of genetic screening in James Rushbrooke's intelligent debut The annual Papat…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:48AM[SHARE]Sunday, November 1, 2015
A critic once described Alan Bennett as 'England's cultural teddy bear'. As his new play, People, prepares to open in London, Michael Billington argues that he is a more complicated " a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:08AM[SHARE]Friday, October 30, 2015
Hampstead theatre, LondonSexual passion, art, Englishness and the creativity of refugees blend in David Hare's enjoyably complex story of the foundation of Glyndebourne opera houseIt initial…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:10AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 29, 2015
Old Vic, LondonBertie Carvel lends his extraordinary physicality to Eugene O'Neill's play that reminds us how much 1920s American drama owed to German artEugene O'Neill's 1922 play is a devi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:27PM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Dorfman, London The performance impress, but Ben Power and Marianne Elliott falter when they try to weave three singular DH Lawrence plays into an ill-conceived wholeThe autumn season is awa…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:51AM[SHARE]Monday, October 26, 2015
Salisbury Playhouse Four short plays set corrupt Russians, a African president and free-market dystopia against our rights, suggesting Magna Carta may be due an update"Does Magna Carta mean …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:07AM[SHARE]Saturday, October 24, 2015
Victoria Palace, LondonTurning small-scale movies into big musicals is a treacherous business. It failed with The Full Monty, which lost all of its gritty truth when musicalised. But Billy E…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:28AM[SHARE]Friday, October 23, 2015
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, LondonI suppose there are two ways to approach this mega-musical: either as a paid-up Tolkien aficionado or as a wide-eyed newcomer. Having dipped only briefly int…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:42AM[SHARE]Finborough theatre, LondonThis inventive production of a Yiddish classic takes potshots at the corrupting power of moneyThis astonishing theatre's latest discovery is a Yiddish classic by Da…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:22AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 22, 2015
Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, London Nicola Wilson's debut drama gives affecting snapshots of one woman at different points in her mental decline, but too many facts stifle the emotional imp…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:40AM[SHARE]Sunday, October 18, 2015
The dream of a national theatre has happily come to pass, not only in England but in Wales and Scotland, too. But is regional theatre under threat as a result?I was very struck by something …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:26PM[SHARE]Chichester Festival theatreSeeing Platonov, Ivanov and The Seagull in a single day unforgettably charts Chekhov's progress from farce to melodrama to a new symphonic realism Sir David Hare h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:22AM[SHARE]Orange Tree, RichmondPaul Miller's impressively cast production throws more light on nervous British masculinity than even the playwright may have intendedTerence Rattigan's 1936 hit has sur…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:16AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 15, 2015
Tricycle, London Tartuffe transplanted to the deep south is full of jet-fuelled prose and raucous hilarity but the original play's target " blind faith " emerges unscathedHaving relocated a …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:26AM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Birmingham Rep theatreTanika Gupta's lively adaptation, with music by Ben and Max Ringham, retains the novel's resonance and zestMeera Syal is, in some ways, the victim of her own success. H…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:08AM[SHARE]Monday, October 12, 2015
Jermyn Street theatre, LondonThe American playwright's 1922 drama, given its UK premiere, suffers from its sentimentality and characters driven by rage and rancourI've often quoted a dictum …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:54AM[SHARE]Friday, October 9, 2015
Young Vic, LondonStrong performances power Joe Hill-Gibbins' inventive production as it brilliantly captures the eternal conflict between flesh and spiritThere are no half measures in Joe Hi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:20AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 8, 2015
Donmar Warehouse, LondonDirected with flair by Dominic Cooke, Christopher Shinn's polemical play demolishes the myth that we live in a cosy world of sexual toleranceChristopher Shinn's fierc…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:22AM[SHARE]He has always been compared to Laurence Olivier. But, as his star-laden season opens at the Garrick, can he now outdo him as actor-manager " and save the West End? One thing I know about Ken…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:04AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Wyndham's theatre, LondonKenneth Cranham and Claire Skinner are superb in Florian Zeller's moving play that takes you inside the mind of a man with dementiaFlorian Zeller's play has enjoyed …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:57AM[SHARE]Sunday, October 4, 2015
Rose theatre, KingstonMemories of Peter Hall and John Barton's original 1963 conflation are banished in refashioned plays for our own divided ageI am old and lucky enough to have seen the or…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:17AM[SHARE]Friday, October 2, 2015
Almeida, London Rachel Cusk's updated version of Euripides's tragedy is wild and witty but dilutes the tragedy by eschewing the violenceReimagining the classics is fine. There is, however, a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:25AM[SHARE]Friel, whose death has been announced, was never a writer to be pigeonholed. He leaves a vast variety of personal and political plays, as well as beautiful translationsBrian Friel, who has d…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:19AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 1, 2015
Everyman, LiverpoolThis timely adaptation has a Europhobic prime minister, Odysseus as a politician turned migrant " and a dead pig jokeLast year, Simon Armitage boldly gave us a version of …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:07AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
