Donmar Warehouse
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Donmar Warehouse review - Lia Williams makes an iconic role her ownThursday, 14 June 2018
Lia Williams can be said to have been in her prime ever since the double-whammy several decades ago when she appeared onstage in fairly quick succession in Oleanna and then the original, and unsurpassable, production of Skylight. But she's rarely... Read more... |
The York Realist, Donmar Warehouse review - a miniaturist masterpieceWednesday, 14 February 2018
Peter Gill has been a quiet if invaluable mainstay of the Donmar over time. But the Welsh playwright-director has rarely been better served than by this emotional stealth bomb of a revival of his 2002 Royal Court play, The York Realist, presented... Read more... |
'Why we understand each other': Peter Gill on The York RealistMonday, 12 February 2018
Fingers on buzzers… Question: What’s the connection between Days of Wine and Roses, Small Change, Making Noise Quietly and Versailles? Answer: They’re all past Donmar productions directed by Peter Gill.But it’s not just his directing skill – no one... Read more... |
Best of 2017: TheatreSaturday, 30 December 2017
Year-end wrap-ups function as both remembrances of things past and time capsules, attempts to preserve an experience to which audiences, for the most part, have said farewell. (It's different, of course, for films, which remain available to us... Read more... |
Belleville, Donmar Warehouse review - prickly and unnervingFriday, 15 December 2017
The city of love provides a backdrop for marital discord and worse in Belleville, Amy Herzog's celebrated Off Broadway play now receiving a riveting British premiere at the Donmar. The director, Michael Longhurst, is rivaling Dominic Cooke (of... Read more... |
The Lady from the Sea, Donmar Warehouse review - Nikki Amuka-Bird luminous in a sympathetic ensembleThursday, 19 October 2017
What a profoundly beautiful play is Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea. It stands in relation to the earlier, relatively confined A Doll’s House, Ghosts and Rosmersholm as Shakespeare's late romances do to the more claustrophobic tragedies. And with what... Read more... |
Nikki Amuka-Bird interview: 'There’s huge enthusiasm among actors of colour'Tuesday, 10 October 2017
Nikki Amuka-Bird spent the summer in Antigua, swimming and scuba diving and could have claimed to be working. She is playing Ellida in Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea at the Donmar, in a version directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah transposed to the Caribbean... Read more... |
Knives in Hens, Donmar Warehouse review – Yaël Farber not symbolic enoughWednesday, 23 August 2017
Hark, is that the call of the earth I hear? In a frenetic urban world, the myth of rural simplicity exerts a strong pull. Surely a simpler life is possible; a more natural rhythm and a slower pace? Oh yes, I can smell burnt peat, and almost scent... Read more... |
Committee review - we're all on trial in new Kids Company musicalTuesday, 04 July 2017
A memorable 2015 parliamentary select committee hearing asked Kids Company CEO Camila Batmanghelidjh and chair of trustees Alan Yentob whether the organisation was ever fit for purpose. Tom Deering, Hadley Fraser and Josie Rourke’s new verbatim... Read more... |
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui review - 'Lenny Henry covers Trump's greatest hits'Wednesday, 03 May 2017
It’s a bigly Trump-fest over at the Donmar, with adaptor Bruce Norris determined to make Brecht great again – or at least pointedly contemporary. Despite a legal disclaimer in the knowing prologue, the current tangerine regime looms large, replacing... Read more... |
Limehouse, Donmar WarehouseThursday, 09 March 2017
Politics is a serious business, but it’s also a spectator sport. Think of the duels in Prime Minister’s Questions; or the marathon that is Brexit. It’s a place of cartoon villains (Corbyn), straight villains (Trump) and plain cartoons (Boris). But... Read more... |
Saint Joan, Donmar WarehouseTuesday, 20 December 2016
How’s this for a Christmas-week story? Joan, a young peasant girl – played in this version by the charismatically attractive Gemma Arterton – grows up in the bleak French countryside. She hears voices. It’s 1429, and they tell her to lift the... Read more... |
