Theatre
Player Kings, Noel Coward Theatre review - inventive showcase for a peerless theatrical knightMonday, 15 April 2024
Shakespeare’s plays have ever been meat for masher-uppers, from the bowdlerising Victorians to the modern filmed-theatre cycles of Ivo Van Hove. And Sir John Falstaff, as Orson Welles proved in Chimes at Midnight, can be the star of his very own... Read more... |
An Actor Convalescing in Devon, Hampstead Theatre review - old school actor tells old school storiesWednesday, 17 April 2024
One can often be made to feel old in the theatre. A hot take in a snappy 90 minutes (with video!) on the latest Gen Z obsession (is it even Gen Z, or were they last year, Daddio?) can leave one baffled or wondering whose gripe is it anyway.... Read more... |
The Comeuppance, Almeida Theatre review - remembering high-school high jinksTuesday, 16 April 2024
I’ve never been one for school reunions, but even if I had kept in touch with former classmates I think that American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s The Comeuppance might, just might, lead me to reflect on the wisdom of revisiting the... Read more... |
Richard, My Richard, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmund's review - too much history, not enough dramaTuesday, 16 April 2024
History is very present in Philippa Gregory’s new play about Richard III. Literally - History is a character, played by Tom Kanji. He strides around in a pale trenchcoat, at first rather too glib and pleased with himself, but quickly sucked into the... Read more... |
Cassie and the Lights, Southwark Playhouse review - powerful, affecting, beautifully acted tale of three sisters in careThursday, 11 April 2024
"In care". It’s a phrase that, if it penetrates our minds at all, usually leads to distressing tabloid stories of children losing their lives at the hands of abusive parents (“Why oh why wasn’t this child in care?”) or of loving parents separated... Read more... |
Gunter, Royal Court review - jolly tale of witchcraft and misogynyTuesday, 09 April 2024
Many an Edinburgh Fringe transfer has struggled when it moves to the big city, but the Dirty Hare company’s Gunter, sensibly embedded in the Royal Court’s intimate Upstairs space, has settled in nicely, thanks.Originally staged at the best Fringe... Read more... |
First Person: actor Paul Jesson on survival, strength, and the healing potential of artMonday, 08 April 2024
In September 2022 I had an email from my American friend Richard Nelson: "Would you like me to write you a play?" Such an offer probably comes the way of very few actors and I was bowled over by it. My astonished and grateful response was tempered... Read more... |
Underdog: the Other, Other Brontë, National Theatre review - enjoyably comic if caricatured sibling rivalryFriday, 05 April 2024
The Brontë sisters and their ne'er-do-well brother will always make good copy. The brilliance of the women constrained by life in a Yorkshire parsonage contrasts dramatically with the wild moors around their home, while their early deaths lend... Read more... |
Long Day's Journey Into Night, Wyndham's Theatre review - O'Neill masterwork is once again driven by its MaryWednesday, 03 April 2024
Memory is a confounding thing. By way of proof, just ask the Mary Tyrone who is being given unforgettable life by Patricia Clarkson in London's latest version of Long Day's Journey into Night, which has arrived on the West End (and at the same... Read more... |
Opening Night, Gielgud Theatre review - brave, yes, but also misguided and bizarreTuesday, 02 April 2024
Is there a more purely likeable actress than Sheridan Smith, the performer who was still a teenager when she stole the show at the Donmar in Into the Woods and who managed, as Elle Woods in the West End premiere of Legally Blonde, to bring... Read more... |
The Divine Mrs S, Hampstead Theatre review - Rachael Stirling shines in hit-and-miss comedyMonday, 01 April 2024
There are genres of theatre that demand buy-in from the audience – musicals, opera and the daddy of them all, pantomime. The usual entry price to the house, the suspension of disbelief, requires supplementing with an active desire to meet the... Read more... |
Power of Sail, Menier Chocolate Factory review - alternately stiff and startlingSaturday, 30 March 2024
The Menier Chocolate Factory has made something of a habit of late out of trawling unexpected corners of the contemporary American repertoire. A happy result of that last May was the local premiere of the Off Broadway show ... Read more... |
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