Monday, August 1, 2011
Returning to the Shaw and Stratford Shakespeare festivals in Ontario after 25 years was a revelation, with Jesus Christ Superstar and The President helping me to see the lightBack in the lat…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:35AM[SHARE]Friday, July 29, 2011
Legal action against a 'malicious' book review has revived an old question: can critics stay honest without giving offence?I was out of the country last week and have only just caught up wit…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:03AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 28, 2011
Theatre Royal BathIt is now widely accepted that these two plays represent the twin summits of William Shakespeare's genius. Peter Hall, returning to them for the first time since he directe…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:03PM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Theatre Royal, BathWatching this rare revival of Noël Coward's lower-middle-class comedy, I was unexpectedly reminded of Arnold Wesker's Chicken Soup With Barley. Coward's play trace…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Chichester Festival TheatreIs sexual discretion the better part of aesthetic valour? To put it more bluntly, is a gay writer obliged to come out publicly or entitled to write in code? It's t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:33PM[SHARE]Chichester Festival TheatreIt is a well-documented fact that the play was partly inspired by the suicide of one of Rattigan's former lovers. But it transcends gender specifics to become Ratt…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:31PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Piccadilly, LondonMusicals based on movies are a dime a dozen, but Ghost is the first I've seen that feels like a film. It is not just that Bruce Joel Rubin's book adheres closely to his mov…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:00PM[SHARE]Sunday, July 17, 2011
Young Vic, LondonThe Palestinian theatre company ShiberHur made a big impact last year with I Am Yusuf and This Is My Brother. Now it is back with an hour-long version of Kafka's 1916 short …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:23AM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tricycle, LondonBilly Roche made his name with the unforgettable Wexford Trilogy. But while his new play deals with a rundown roadshow in a manner reminiscent of Brian Friel's Crystal a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:10PM[SHARE]Monday, July 11, 2011
Regent's Park Open Air theatre, LondonNatalie Abrahami's production does exactly what it says on the tin. Billed as "Pericles reimagined for everyone aged six and over", what we get is a viv…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:45PM[SHARE]Talented actor Janie Dee knows how to make cabaret come alive: by making every word countI rarely go to cabaret: not out of any high-minded principles but because the form itself, like intim…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:36AM[SHARE]Friday, July 8, 2011
Apollo, LondonShould political comedy acknowledge current events? You can't expect nightly rewrites, but it seems odd, given that it has a protagonist named Hacker, that this piece by Antony…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:52PM[SHARE]If a rabbit-skinning scene caused uproar, how will New York handle the underage sex and other video nasties that pepper Shakespeare's work?There are more ways than one, they say, to skin a c…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:18AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 7, 2011
Finborough, LondonThis theatre's annual, unsung Vibrant festival offers a month of staged readings of new plays. One beneficiary of the process in 2009 was Nick Gill's Mirror Teeth, which no…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:05PM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Menier Chocolate Factory, LondonThis is the European premiere of a musical by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman that has gone through multiple rewrites. It sta rted in 1999 as Wise Guys, was…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Chichester Festival TheatreThe title song is terrific. The brolly-brandishing Adam Cooper splashes about in the rain with infectiously childish glee. Indeed, the effect is so good that the w…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:00PM[SHARE]Monday, July 4, 2011
Minerva, ChichesterIt would be nice to think that Caryl Churchill's 1982 play, written during the rise of Thatcherism, now looks dated. In fact, it seems terrifyingly topical in its portrait…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:45PM[SHARE]Sunday, July 3, 2011
Royal Court, LondonAs she proved in Eigengrau at the Bush, Penelope Skinner is preoccupied by sex. She writes about it with a candour that is both entertaining and fiercely erotic. But, havi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:59PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Old Vic, LondonThere are basically two ways of presenting Richard III: as the culmination of a cycle or as a standalone drama. And, although I think it only makes total sense when seen in th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:00PM[SHARE]Regent's Park, LondonLucy Bailey has had a bold and radical idea: to stage John Gay's 1728 ballad opera in its original period. This makes sense, since the piece was both an attack on Sir Ro…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:22PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Soho Theatre UpstairsLou Ramsden is a young writer with a message to convey: that we live in a self-obsessed society that marginalises and even exploits people with learning difficulties. Th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PM[SHARE]Monday, June 27, 2011
One of my favourite festivals is the tiny but perfectly formed Galway theatre festival " and this year's instalment promises to be as brilliant (and boozy) as everWhat makes for a good arts …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:07AM[SHARE]Sunday, June 26, 2011
Southwark Playhouse, LondonYou can see why Odön von Horváth's savagely laconic play has been revived. Set in Munich in 1932, it deals with a world in which money is tight, jobs are scarc…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:31PM[SHARE]Friday, June 24, 2011
Trafalgar Studios, LondonWe've had some fine one-man shows about Shakespeare from John Gielgud, Ian McKellen and Michael Pennington. But Simon Callow's is among the very best, partly because…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:38PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Trafalgar Studio, LondonWomen are currently making the running in the new writing stakes. Confirmation comes with the transfer from Hampstead Downstairs to the West End of this play from Mor…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:30PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Vaudeville, LondonIn the heyday of variety and vaudeville, eccentric jugglers, dancers and musicians would be one item on a gloriously mixed bill. Now what were once known as "speciality act…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PM[SHARE]The Old Shepherd's Bush Library, LondonThis is like a jolly house-warming before the new occupants have fully moved in. The Bush theatre has temporarily taken over the three-storey building …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:07PM[SHARE]Thursday, June 16, 2011
Comedy Theatre, LondonHaving rubbished Harold Pinter's Betrayal on its appearance in 1978, I seem to have spent much of my life discovering its complexities. Each production yields fresh ins…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:39PM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Gielgud, LondonFirst-rate musical farces, with the signal exception of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, are rare for one obvious reason: the songs tend to hold up the action. …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:03PM[SHARE]Olivier, LondonIbsen's enormous double-drama has had to bide its time: written between 1868 and 1873, it is only now receiving its British stage premiere, in Jonathan Kent's stunning staging…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:00PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, LondonOnce upon a time musicals drew their inspiration from books, plays or even real life; now they seem to be based on animated movies. But, although Shrek stems…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:00PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
