Theatre Reviews
Abigail's Party, Menier Chocolate FactoryFriday, 09 March 2012
Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party: comedy classic or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with added sneering? Ever since its first appearance on stage in 1977 and its subsequent record-breaking broadcast as a BBC Play for Today with an eye-widening 16 million viewers (not to mention those watching the subsequent DVD), there has been disagreement. Read more... |
Farewell to the Theatre, Hampstead TheatreThursday, 08 March 2012
Harley Granville Barker is hardly a household name, but he was a huge influence on British theatre today. During the Edwardian era, he promoted new writing at the Royal Court; he wrote plays such as The Voysey Inheritance, Waste and The Madras House, which have been successfully revived; he invented the modern idea of the director; he advocated permanent companies of actors; and he campaigned for a national theatre. Not a bad legacy. Read more... |
A Provincial Life, National Theatre WalesWednesday, 07 March 2012
Since their launch just two years ago, National Theatre Wales has staged plays on a firing range, in a miner’s institute, and – most memorably – claimed the whole town of Port Talbot as their stage for Owen Sheer’s The Passion last Easter. Setting themselves the challenge of producing 12 productions in their first 12 months, this building-less company have somehow turned a modest (not to say meagre) £1 million a year subsidy into a living, risk-taking tradition of national theatre... Read more... |
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Royal Exchange, ManchesterTuesday, 06 March 2012
What is it about the Sixties that keeps drawing us back? Surely, it can’t just be that anniversary thing – 50 years on? Perhaps, in these care-worn times, we just like to revisit our don’t-give-a-damn anti-heroes, having their cake and eating it, pleasuring their mates’ marriage-weary wives, arranging abortions if things go wrong, downing pints in the pub. That was the life. Read more... |
The Lady From the Sea, Rose Theatre, KingstonFriday, 02 March 2012
“The lady from the sea” is what a remote Norwegian fjord town calls the young second wife of its good doctor, an elusive woman who seems to walk in the footsteps of the ghost of her well-loved predecessor. Read more... |
Snookered, Bush TheatreFriday, 02 March 2012
What’s it like to be young, British and Muslim in the age of austerity? In an era of global financial crisis, high unemployment and shrinking pay packets, what can this country offer British Asian youth? Read more... |
All New People, Duke of York's TheatreWednesday, 29 February 2012
Zach Braff’s debut theatre piece begins with Charlie (Mr Braff himself), in an empty house, swinging from a noosed extension lead, attempting to do the big FO while f(l)ailing to extinguish a cigarette and listening to the bagpipes on a record-player. At which crucial moment he is interrupted by Emma, a flibbertigibbety-type Brit realtor; then Myron, the local drama-teacher-turned-fire-chief/drug-kingpin; and then Kim, a callgirl. All of whom seem hell bent on spoiling Charlie’s big day. Read more... |
Goodbye to All That, Royal Court TheatreTuesday, 28 February 2012
The Royal Court has been finding and developing young writers for four decades. Its Young Writers Festival has helped launch the careers of a variety of talents such as Simon Stephens (winner of the 2005 Olivier for Best Newcomer), Christopher Shinn (nominated for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize), Bola Agbaje (winner of an Olivier in 2008), as well as Michael Wynne, Chloe Moss and Alia Bano. Read more... |
Hay Fever, Noël Coward TheatreMonday, 27 February 2012
“Winsome” isn’t a word you hear very often these days. The taint of coy, simpering campery already hung about it in the 1920s when Noël Coward gave it a starring role in the after-dinner word-charades of his hit Hay Fever. Yet now (as then) it’s a word that speaks to precisely the brand of giddy, self-conscious charm Coward’s play so determinedly exerts. Read more... |
The Daughter-in-Law, The Lowry, SalfordMonday, 27 February 2012
“Am I for t’ see mi own lad bitted an’ bobbed? Theer’s more blort than bustle i’ this world - an’ ‘er’s a clat-fart”. Welcome to the old curiosity shop of English drama, from which Manchester Library Theatre director Chris Honer has dusted down one of DH Lawrence’s mining plays, written a century ago, around the time of Sons and Lovers, and not even published, let alone performed, in his lifetime. Lawrence didn’t have much luck with his plays, not being a la mode. Read more... |
Pages
Advertising feature
★★★★★
‘A compulsive, involving, emotionally stirring evening – theatre’s answer to a page-turner.’
The Observer, Kate Kellaway
Direct from a sold-out season at Kiln Theatre the five star, hit play, The Son, is now playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre for a strictly limited season.
★★★★★
‘This final part of Florian Zeller’s trilogy is the most powerful of all.’
The Times, Ann Treneman
Written by the internationally acclaimed Florian Zeller (The Father, The Mother), lauded by The Guardian as ‘the most exciting playwright of our time’, The Son is directed by the award-winning Michael Longhurst.
Book by 30 September and get tickets from £15*
with no booking fee.
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