Theatre
Jasper Rees
In London and New York, Phoebe Fox (b. 1987) is known to theatregoers as Catherine, the niece over whom Mark Strong's Eddie Carbone went pazzo. Their physical intimacy, in Ivo van Hove’s sizzling Young Vic production of A View from the Bridge, made for an intensely uncomfortable viewing experience. For her return to the stage, Fox is in a frothier one-sided relationship. In the National Theatre’s Twelfth Night she plays Olivia, the grieving countess who falls in love with a boy she doesn’t know is a girl.Simon Godwin’s production has further fun with gender by giving the yellow cross garters Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Playwright Philip Ridley has one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary theatre. His imagination is laced with sci-fi images and an East End gothic sensibility, and his mastery of storytelling continues to surprise and delight. In 1991, he kicked off his playwriting career – having already written several books and the script for The Krays – by penning The Pitchfork Disney, a stunning example of leftfield writing that still dazzles with its intensity and its magical vision. This revival is by wonderboy Jamie Lloyd, and includes Hayley Squires (who occasionally lit up the Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
The writing of Tennessee Williams, said his contemporary Arthur Miller, planted “the flag of beauty on the shores of commercial theatre”. This American production of Williams’s breakthrough play – a hit on Broadway and at the Edinburgh Festival last summer – does not disappoint in the beauty stakes, drawing both eye and ear to its chamber-work delicacy, translucent as one of Laura Wingfield’s glass animals.The production is directed by John Tiffany, a creative force behind the West End's Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and, sure enough, inexplicable things happen here, too. Tom Wingfield ( Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Odd bedfellows are an ideal subject for comedy, and for passion — because opposites attract, right? Well this is certainly the set up of the latest and smartish new drama from American playwright and House of Cards script-writer Laura Eason, which tells the story of an odd-couple meeting that results in some hot sex and some even more heated ambition. In this two-hander, its latest homage to Americana, the Hampstead Theatre has cast Emilia Fox, the Silent Witness regular who has previously appeared here in Gina Gionfriddo’s Rapture, Blister, Burn, as well as television and film star Theo Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
It's no accident that when the Globe's Sam Wanamaker Playhouse opened in 2014 it was with The Duchess of Malfi. This wooden womb, with its thick darkness and close-pressed audience is made for the stifling, claustrophobic horror of revenge tragedy. Not since that original Malfi have we seen a production that has taken full advantage of the theatre, played with atmosphere to such horrible effect as Annie Ryan’s White Devil.Corrupt authority, sexual scandal, political intrigue: not a Trump White House, but Webster’s satire, dark as the ink in which it was written. This tale of the sexually Read more ...
aleks.sierz
As the only inhabitant of Planet Earth who wasn’t knocked completely senseless by La La Land, it does occur to me that I might not be the most sympathetic reviewer of a rom-com. Still, I’m willing to give it a try. So here goes: written and originally performed by Richard Marsh and Katie Bonna, Dirty Great Love Story is a 95-minute romp that tells a story about how boy-meets-girl, boy-shags-girl, girl-leaves-boy, boy-keeps-bumping-into-girl and – after two years – girl-realises-she-loves-boy. It sounds charmless, but actually its chief virtue is its bright LOL and drink-fuelled charm.The Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Unimaginable tragedy is given poignant, piquant form in Us/Them. The hour-long performance piece from Belgian theatre company BRONKS has arrived at the National after a much-acclaimed Edinburgh Festival premiere last year. In its intricate weave of frontline semi-reportage and slyly subversive comedy, Dutch-born writer-director Carly Wijs allows a sense of play to inform at every turn this highly physical account of the Beslan school siege in September, 2004. The terrorist act propelled a little-known town in the Russian Caucasus into grievous front-page news. The conceit here is that Read more ...
Marianka Swain
“I’m Death.” “And you’re on holiday?” Well, there’s really no way to disguise the preposterousness of this musical’s premise, nor to reconcile its winking humour and self-serious grand romance. Thus, Thom Southerland’s London premiere wisely diverts attention to its seductive qualities as a stylish period piece – come for the flappers, champers, saucy maids and misty Italian arches.Alberto Casella’s 1924 play, adapted into a 2011 chamber musical by Maury Yeston, Thomas Meehan and Peter Stone, is perhaps best known in another incarnation: the interminable 1998 Brad Pitt/Anthony Read more ...
Matt Wolf
There's an irony to be found in the fact that America's 45th president is already abolishing any and all things to do with the arts even as his ascendancy looks set to provide catnip to artists to a degree not seen since the heyday of Margaret Thatcher. By way of proof, consider the smart, savvy theatrical pop-up that is Top Trumps, in which a dozen playwrights provide a kaleidoscopic range of responses to recent events that offers empathy and reason for alarm in equal measure.Battersea's 63-seat Theatre 503 is to be commended on a four-performance-only venture that surely deserves a broader Read more ...
aleks.sierz
A day or so after Theresa May’s keynote speech about Brexit the words Europe and European carry an electric charge. For Leavers, they represent the evil empire; for Remainers, a world we have lost. In this context, seeing a play by Germany’s most performed playwright feels more than usually significant. Although Roland Schimmelpfennig has dozens of plays to his name, only a handful have been staged in this country so this is a good chance to catch up with his work. The fact that Winter Solstice is billed as a razor-sharp comedy whose subject is Nazism only adds to the interest that radiates Read more ...
David Kettle
We probably think we know the story. From Peter Weir’s cult 1975 film, or even from the original 1967 novel by Joan Lindsay. An excitable gaggle of Australian schoolgirls from an uptight, English-run boarding school take a trip to sinister volcanic Hanging Rock, where four vanish – three students, one teacher – leaving no clues as to what’s become of them.Although it’s entirely fictional, it feels like a tale that’s existed forever, one that needs to be told and retold. And it’s Picnic at Hanging Rock’s mythic status that sits at the core of this superbly fierce, austere staging by Melbourne’ Read more ...
aleks.sierz
You could call it the Corbynisation of new writing. In the past couple of years, a series of plays have plumbed the lower depths, looking at the subject of good people trapped in zero-hour contracts and terrible working conditions. Like Ken Loach’s dreary film, I, Daniel Blake, these plays have integrity, but very little dramatic content. Market leaders of this new fashion are two plays devised under the direction of Alexander Zeldin, Beyond Caring and Love. And the latest addition to this catalogue is Katherine Soper’s Wish List, winner of the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, co- Read more ...