Theatre Reviews
The Habit of Art, National TheatreWednesday, 18 November 2009
It sounded a dry subject and a dry title for Alan Bennett’s first play for five years - a fictional meeting between composer Benjamin Britten and poet W H Auden 25 years after they fell out, two old buggers, one furtive, the other extrovert. But at last night's premiere The Habit of Art proved an excruciatingly funny play, ribald, merciless, and as much about the bad habit of Theatre as that of the higher-toned Art. Read more... |
The Making of Moo, Orange Tree TheatreTuesday, 17 November 2009
Reviving rarely performed plays is a high-risk strategy. On the one hand, there’s the chance of discovering a forgotten gem; on the other, there may be good reasons for the play being rarely performed. Nigel Dennis’s The Making of Moo was first staged at the Royal Court in 1957 with a cast that included Joan Plowright, John Osborne and George Devine, and provoked accusations of blasphemy. How has this satire on religion stood the test of time? Read more... |
Mixed Up North, Wilton's Music HallSaturday, 14 November 2009
At first glance, verbatim theatre is a total bore. This form of drama, which collects the words spoken by real individuals and puts them into the mouths of actors, has been a central plank of the rebirth of political theatre since 9/11, but its pleasures tend to be cerebral rather than visceral, moral rather than physical. Attending a verbatim theatre event - such as Out Of Joint's latest show, Mixed Up North - usually makes you feel good as a citizen rather than as a person. Read more... |
Architecting, BarbicanFriday, 06 November 2009
There’s always a danger that when one raves about a play at the Edinburgh Fringe, seeing it a year later in another theatre and with a slightly different staging can be a disappointment. But that’s not the case with Architecting, a devised piece by New York-based ensemble the TEAM in a co-production with the... Read more... |
Shraddha, Soho TheatreWednesday, 04 November 2009
Oh dear, poor Pearl is in a bit of pickle. She's 17, and her mum wants to know what she's doing talkin' to Joe, a young lad from the local estate. After all, Pearl is meant to be engaged to Clive, her childhood sweetheart. And he'd come running if only Pearl would whistle. But she ain't interest'd. Anyhow, Pearl's mum knows what's what, and she reckons that mixed marriages never work. You see, Pearl is a Romany Gypsy and Joe is just a "Gorger" boy - that's Romany for anyone who isn't "one of us... Read more... |
Mrs Klein, Almeida TheatreSunday, 01 November 2009
Don't be put off by the deliberately dim interior that first greets you at Mrs Klein, the Nicholas Wright play that has been scorchingly revived at the Almeida Theatre by the director Thea Sharrock and a cast including Clare Higgins in her third stand-out performance on the London stage this year. Those who feel as if they've had enough theatrical psychiatry-speak from the Almeida courtesy of that venue's recent revival of Duet For One, think again: a play that can emerge... Read more... |
Pains of Youth, National TheatreWednesday, 28 October 2009
Dateline: Vienna, 1923. In a boarding house, seven young people - most of whom are medical students - find the air of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire’s capital city a heady mix of the sexually invigorating and the morally asphyxiating. At the opening last night of Ferdinand Bruckner's rarely performed play, Pains of Youth, there were moments when the event felt as if Egon Schiele was meeting Sigmund Freud at a madhouse performance of La Ronde. Read more... |
Days of Significance, touringSunday, 25 October 2009
When the Royal Shakespeare Company asked Roy Williams to write something with Much Ado About Nothing as his inspiration, he didn’t merely update the romantic comedy. Rather he took some characters and plotlines and cleverly wove them into Days of Significance, a shocking and powerful play about the Iraq war, which was staged at Stratford-upon-Avon in 2007. This touring version, which I saw at... Read more... |
If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet, Bush TheatreSaturday, 24 October 2009
Family life can be bad for your health. Especially if you are an overweight teenager. Take Anna for example. She's 15, a bit on the plump side, and having a rough time. At school, where - horror of horrors - her Mum is a teacher, she's attracted the attention of some bullies. But worse than unwelcome attention is neglect: her Dad is too busy writing a book about saving the planet from climate change to pay much attention to his daughter, or his wife. But help is on its way. Read more... |
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, VaudevilleTuesday, 20 October 2009
It’s a big ask for any performer to take on a role that was written specially for another actor, but Diana Vickers’ supporters from her appearances in last year’s X Factor on ITV will be pleased to learn that she acquits herself very well indeed. She is Little Voice in Terry Johnson’s pleasing revival of Jim Cartwright’s The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, which began life in the National’s Cottesloe Theatre in 1992 with Jane Horrocks in the title role. 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*
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