Theatre
Helen Hawkins
The RSC apparently has a hit on its hands with its West End transfer of Hamnet. Box office demand has already prompted an extension of the run by six weeks, until February 2024.The draw is presumably the bestselling 2020 novel by Maggie O’Farrell on which the play is based, which is a commandingly and inventively written unfolding of the Shakespeare family’s poignant story over almost two decades, at the heart of which is Agnes Hathaway’s relationship with Will Shakespeare and their three children, who include the Hamnet of the title.O’Farrell maps out this story in chronological zigzags, Read more ...
David Kettle
An all-female production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula – well, kind of – that transplants the novel’s more local action to the northeast of Scotland, and finds a bloody new calling for one of its less ostentatious characters? Elgin-born writer Morna Pearson is asking a lot from Stoker purists in her bold reimagining of the iconic, endlessly retold tale for the National Theatre of Scotland.For some, truth be told, Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning might push their patience and credulity a bit too far. But ultimately, this is an ambitious, highly effective and gleefully provocative rethink of the classic Read more ...
Gary Naylor
I know, I was there. Well, not in Edinburgh in 1985, but in Liverpool in 1981, and the pull of London and the push from home, was just as strong for me back then as it is for Eck in John McKay’s comedy Dead Dad Dog. Back in London for the first time in 35 years, it plays now not as contemporary satirical commentary on Thatcher's Britain, but as warm nostalgia-fest, inevitably its teeth blunted, its references, Morrissey excepted, cuddlier. That softening comes, at least in part, from a quick survey of the house people of a certain age. To paraphrase Stephen Sondheim from Read more ...
Mert Dilek
Jamie Lloyd has the gift that keeps on giving. Hot on the heels of recent productions on Broadway and at the National Theatre, the visionary director is back in the West End with a stupendous reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s modern classic Sunset Boulevard, starring Nicole Scherzinger (of Pussycat Dolls fame) as the forgotten screen queen Norma Desmond.With book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, Webber's 1993 piece is an adaptation of Billy Wilder’s cult 1950 film, and finds itself, in this instance, subjected to a further adaptation in Lloyd’s masterful hands. Read more ...
Jane Edwardes
There were shrieks, gasps, and nervous laughter in the Nöel Coward Theatre during press night of a kind rarely heard in the theatre. The startled cries marked the triumphant return of Joel Horwood’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s magical novel, first seen at the National Theatre in 2019 and now returning to the West End after a long tour.An exploration of the liminal space between memory and imagination, the play focuses on a young, unhappy boy: friendless, distressed by the absence of his mother, frustrated by his father’s attempts to look after him and his sister – burnt toast anyone? – and Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Multiculturalism, according to the Home Secretary, has failed, so where does that leave British Black and Asian communities? Well, certainly not silent. In Mohamed-Zain Dada’s vigorous 90-minute debut play, Blue Mist, the pronouncements of the person he calls Suella de Vil are greeted with all the contempt they deserve. Premiering in the Royal Court’s Upstairs studio space, this story about South Asian Muslim men offers an insight into shisha lounge culture — and challenges easy stereotypes about youth and masculinity.Set in Chunkyz Shisha Lounge, where the twentysomething mates Jihad, Rashid Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Writing about the upcoming 60th anniversary of the founding of the National Theatre in The Guardian recently, the usually reliable Michael Billington made a rare misstep. He called for the successor to Rufus Norris, the departing artistic director, to stage neglected classics: “I would also argue that the National, given its resources, has a civic duty to revive the drama of the past that, Shakespeare aside, is in danger of being consigned to the dustbin.” But does it need to? Whilst it is obvious that an NT production would be a very different beast to a fringe show, Lazarus Theatre Read more ...
aleks.sierz
It’s closing time somewhere in the East End. Nah, not the pub, but at a small local shop. Inside, Denise is banging around with some big pans, while Carly is packing up the flowers. Their business is coming to an end and they are about to hand over the keys to the next tenant.It’s also the climax of Roy Williams and Clint Dyer’s epic Death of England tetralogy, which began in early 2020, and has been one of the best new writing series recently staged at the flagship National Theatre. But while earlier episodes – Death of England, Delroy and Face to Face – featured the men, this time it’s the Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The starting point of this musical comedy – using a panto format to take a deep dive into the UK's immigration law – comes from such a good place that one feels a real heel for criticising it. But however much I wanted to like Shani Erez's ambitious work for BOLD Theatre, I really couldn't.The story within a story follows a group of immigrants to “Britaim” as they stage a panto – what could be more British? – to show their love and knowledge of UK culture.For panto fans there are nods to Dick Whittington, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty as the story follows Lord Villain (Vikash Bhai), the Read more ...
David Kettle
The title of Peter Arnott’s new play – a co-production with the Pitlochry Festival Theatre, and now partway into a ten-day run at Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre – might conjure a painterly image of contented friends and family in an idyllic rural setting.There’s plenty that meets that description in Arnott’s plotline. Ageing politics academic Rennie (a nicely self-satisfied John Michie) has invited a gaggle of his remaining brood, plus a couple of judiciously selected ex-students and their current companions, to his country retreat in Perthshire – a setting that’s stunning evoked in the picture Read more ...
Paul Vale
Although based on the 1958 Paul Gallico novel Mrs 'Arris Goes To Paris, this musical adaptation arrived much later. With a book by Rachel Wagstaff and music and lyrics by Richard Taylor, Flowers for Mrs Harris premiered in Sheffield in 2016, directed by then artistic director Daniel Evans and starring Clare Burt (now appearing across town in Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends) as the eponymous Ada Harris.When Evans transferred to the Chichester Festival Theatre the show was revived there in 2018, but this production marks its London premiere, a year after Lesley Manville led a film version of the Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Shakespeare gives Iago over 1000 lines to implant the jealous rage in Othello, so there’s plenty to of raw material to work with. The director Sinéad Rushe has had the idea to split these weaselly words between three actors, a device that seems so natural, so revealing, so obvious that one wonders why it hasn’t been done before (or, perhaps, more often).Cut to 100 minutes all-through, this production does not just re-invent the wicked ensign, but forces us to reconsider the Iagos we have met in the past and the Othellos he has driven to dreadful murder. Michael C Fox, Orlando James and Read more ...