Theatre Reviews
The Book of Mormon, Prince of Wales TheatreFriday, 22 March 2013
It’s one of the most anticipated theatrical openings of the year, with tickets allegedly changing hands for astronomical sums and some pundits rushing to issue dire warnings of the depths of its lewdness and its shattering shock factor well before its official first night. So can this musical by Robert Lopez and the incorrigible South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker possibly live up the hype? Read more... |
Steptoe and Son, Lyric HammersmithThursday, 21 March 2013
What’s this? Harold and Albert turfed out of their old stamping ground of Shepherd’s Bush and turned into West Country natives? Any change to a cherished sitcom comes at the theatre director’s peril, but a change of accent? Somehow, this sounds a jarring note more dissonant than any changes to script or action, though, in fact, Emma Rice’s adaptation has remained remarkably faithful to Galton and Simpson’s original 1962 pilot, as well as to three later episodes. Read more... |
Proof, Menier Chocolate FactoryThursday, 21 March 2013
Mathematicians are a breed apart, bandying numbers about in a way that few outside their magic circle can fully understand. David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play uses this exclusiveness to investigate the complex relationship between a father and daughter. Read more... |
The Winslow Boy, Old VicWednesday, 20 March 2013
Terence Rattigan's beautifully spoken characters are a passionate lot in this gripping story of a father's fight to prove his son's innocence. Lindsay Posner's production of the 1946 play succors and seduces its audience with an unstoppable determination to prove that right will be done. Its methods may not be subtle, but its effects are no less stirring. Read more... |
The Man Who Pays the Piper, Orange Tree TheatreMonday, 18 March 2013
Staged in 1931, The Man Who Pays the Piper appealed to women who had gone to work (and become the master of the house) while men were fighting in the First World War, but were subjugated once they returned. The protagonist, Daryll, starts work during this time and gets hooked on the money, the independence and the buzz of her job at a fashion house. She enjoys being able to keep her siblings and kindly but inept mother in luxury. |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bristol Old VicSaturday, 16 March 2013
The thing about puppets, as those who have handled them know all too well, is that they take over. They have a life of their own. This is all fine and good as long as the puppet-masters don’t get swamped by the magical power of supposedly inanimate objects. Read more... |
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Apollo TheatreWednesday, 13 March 2013
Without wishing to get all Kirstie and Phil about this, theatre, more often than you’d imagine, is about location, location, location. One of the reasons why the National Theatre’s knockout The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was so potent was because director Marianne Elliott welded the audience to all four sides of the action. Transferred to a West End stage, the tension between stage and audience is undeniably different. Is the show still a triumph? Read more... |
Mies Julie, Riverside StudiosTuesday, 12 March 2013
Snow flurries outside, steam heat within. Writer-director Yael Farber’s transposition of Strindberg from a 19th-century Swedish estate to a contemporary farm in South Africa’s Karoo region on the eve of a storm is so painstakingly evocative that all worries about the latest publicity image – shades of blaxploitation, more Mandingo than Miss Julie – instantly evaporate. Read more... |
Longing, Hampstead TheatreFriday, 08 March 2013
If only there were more Chekhov! Theatregoers in England, for whom Anton Pavlovich is little short of a god, must have wished this often enough. The handful of great plays come round almost as frequently as Shakespeare. Yet, as well as a couple of lesser plays and some crude farces, Chekhov wrote almost 600 short stories, counting the comic squibs with which he helped to support his family as a very young man. Read more... |
The Audience, Gielgud TheatreThursday, 07 March 2013
Catching rabies from a corgi, living on a council estate, becoming an uncommon book addict, painting the town red, incognito on VE Day, parachuting into East London on a date with James Bond... what a strange fantasy life our Queen has led.* Read more... |
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★★★★★
‘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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