Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Orange Tree, RichmondIs there anything funnier in the history of farce than the central act of this 1896 Georges Feydeau play, originally entitled Le Dindon? The comic highpoint comes w…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:05AM[SHARE]Sunday, December 30, 2012
It looks set to be an intriguing year on stage that will also see Philip Pullman take on Cinderella and the RSC tackle VoltaireThe AudienceAfter starring in Peter Morgan's The Queen, Helen M…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:30PM[SHARE]Thursday, December 20, 2012
Mayfair Hotel, LondonWhen it comes to the magical manipulation of cards, the American Ricky Jay is the past master. Although our own Steve Truglia is not yet in that league, this entertainin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:10AM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 19, 2012
St James Theatre, LondonIn the last week I've seen a witch being incinerated, dead cats served up as filling for a giant's sandwich and now a girl's toes cut off with a meat cleaver. After t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:46PM[SHARE]Nirvana, four-letter words and staging straight out of Beckett " there was nothing expected about Benedict Andrews's production of Chekhov. It was all the more brilliant for itIt shouldn't h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:40PM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Trafalgar Studios 2, LondonA play about about a half-crazed married couple locked together in splenetic isolation may not seem ideal fare for Christmas. But Titas Halder, as director of the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:35AM[SHARE]Monday, December 17, 2012
Lyttelton, LondonI sometimes feel I know Alan Bennett's family almost as well as my own. But, although these two "recollections" contain material that will be familiar to readers of Bennett'…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:49PM[SHARE]Sunday, December 16, 2012
Theatre Royal Stratford East, LondonThese days, pantomime thrives in London's east, rather than west, end; and this cherished Victorian theatre, situated close to the Olympic stadium, h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PM[SHARE]Thursday, December 13, 2012
Royal Court, LondonNo one could accuse the Royal Court of offering us a piece of feelgood escapism for Christmas. Instead, they have come up with a challenging new 110-minute play from Marti…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:15PM[SHARE]A new V&A archive shows that while in some ways theatre changed unrecognisably between 1945 and 2010, some things remain toxically the sameGallery: 65 years of theatre " in 10 picturesWhat h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:21AM[SHARE]Monday, December 10, 2012
Noël Coward theatre, LondonMichael Grandage could hardly have made a better start to his five-show West End season than with this joyous revival of Peter Nichols's 1977 play with music. W…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:00PM[SHARE]Sunday, December 9, 2012
Tricycle theatre, LondonScan the schedules and you find'll versions of The Arabian Nights cropping up all over the UK. This particular one, by Mary Zimmerman, was first seen in Chicago in&nb…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:01PM[SHARE]Thursday, December 6, 2012
Hampstead theatre, LondonDoes anyone remember Noël Coward's Mrs Wentworth Brewster? She was the widow, celebrated in the song A Bar on the Piccola Marina, whose heart, at her husband's fu…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:37PM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Adelphi theatre, LondonLawrence Kasdan has recorded his surprise at the idea of his screenplay for the 1992 movie, starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner, being used as the basis for a m…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:40PM[SHARE]A lecture about overpopulation and climate change turned out to be the unlikely highlight of a year that also featured an intriguing Russian invasionThe most momentous theatrical performance…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:00PM[SHARE]Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Donmar Warehouse, LondonI don't think we should get carried away and start arguing that single-sex Shakespeare is the only way forward. But, like Mark Antony, Phyllida Lloyd is a "shrewd con…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:10PM[SHARE]Sunday, December 2, 2012
Finborough, LondonThe Papatango New Writing festival last year came up with Dawn King's mesmerising Foxfinder. Even if this year's winner is more conventional, Louise Monaghan's play st…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:48PM[SHARE]Friday, November 30, 2012
Royal Court, LondonTwo years ago, EV Crowe made a disturbing debut with a play called Kin, about 10-year-old bullies at a posh girls' school. Now she comes up with a longer but less startlin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:56PM[SHARE]Thursday, November 29, 2012
Swan, Stratford-on-AvonAny production of Pushkin's 1825 play is haunted by gigantic shadows. First there are the Shakespearean tragedies and histories, especially Macbeth and Richard III, wh…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:07AM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Menier Chocolate Factory, LondonAlthough it famously flopped on Broadway in 1981, this Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical has been re-evaluated in fine British revivals at Leicester Hayma…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:59PM[SHARE]Phoenix, LondonI've never read Michelle Magorian's 1981 novel for young readers on which David Wood's adaptation is based, but I was struck by the story's debt to Oliver Twist: in both, a se…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:10AM[SHARE]Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Young Vic, LondonTransfers can be as tricky in theatre as they are in football; and while Joe Hill-Gibbins's largely recast production of Middleton and Rowley's 1622 tragedy, which originall…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:55AM[SHARE]Monday, November 26, 2012
Britain's brightest talents were rewarded at a glitzy ceremony on Sunday. Great " but savage cuts are about to damage our theatre beyond recognition"Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" was …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:22PM[SHARE]While the glitterati assembled at the Savoy for the Evening Standard theatre awards, I was at London's Royal Court watching a fine cast give a brilliantly clear account of Arden's neglected …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:22AM[SHARE]Friday, November 23, 2012
Soho theatre, London"Can a story save a life?" That is the question posed at the start of this multi-authored show in which six writers adapt narratives from The 1001 Nights, in response to …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:57PM[SHARE]Thursday, November 22, 2012
Orange Tree, RichmondWatching David Antrobus's rare and exhilarating revival of this early Ibsen play, written in 1862 when he was 34, I was reminded of another youthful work: Shakespeare's …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:31AM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Olivier, LondonIt was originally to have been The Count of Monte Cristo in the Olivier this Yule but instead we get a revival of Pinero's 1885 farce. I have no complaints about that since I …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:26PM[SHARE]Trafalgar Studios, LondonAleksei Arbuzov's play, with its suggestion that the wartime siege of Leningrad emotionally devastated a whole generation, must have seemed daring in the Soviet Unio…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:12PM[SHARE]Sunday, November 18, 2012
Apollo, London★★★★/★★★For those of us who favour good sightlines and acoustics, the transfer of these two productions from Shakespeare's Globe to th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:00AM[SHARE]Friday, November 16, 2012
Almeida, LondonPlays about poets are notoriously problematic. But Nick Dear overcomes the difficulties in this probing, intelligent piece about Edward Thomas, who produced a formidable body …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:57AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
