thu 12/12/2024

playwrights

Infinite Life, National Theatre review - beguiling new comedy about a world of pain

A sun deck with seven pale-green padded loungers is the latest setting for the latest National Theatre premiere from American playwright Annie Baker to people in her inimitable way. In her hands this banal space is as dramatically charged as...

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£1 Thursdays, Finborough Theatre review - dazzling new play is as funny and smart as its two heroines

It’s 2012 and the London Olympics might as well be happening on the Moon for Jen and Stacey. In fact, you could say the same for everyone else scrabbling a living in Bradford – or anywhere north of Watford – and we know what those left-behind places...

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Oh What A Lovely War, Southwark Playhouse review - 60 years on, the old warhorse can still bare its teeth

In Annus Mirabilis, Philip Larkin wrote,"So life was never better than In nineteen sixty-three (Though just too late for me) – Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban And the Beatles' first LP."That might be the only point...

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Blue Mist, Royal Court review - authentic, but not entirely convincing

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...

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The Pillowman, Duke of York’s Theatre review - starry but slack

British theatre is getting a bit timid – is that right? Ahead of the opening of this revival of Martin McDonagh’s unforgettable 2003 masterpiece, The Pillowman, its director Matthew Dunster has spoken of the tendency of playwrights and theatres...

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Mad About the Boy review - entertaining cradle-to-grave Noel Coward documentary

Devoted fans may not learn anything that new about Noel Coward from Barnaby Thompson’s documentary Mad About the Boy, but they will doubtless see some new things. And those who know “the Master” only from his early plays, hardy perennials these...

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Dixon and Daughters, National Theatre review - cold discomfort harm

Men are bastards. Okay, not all of us, but enough to make the lives of millions of women a misery. This we know, but anyone who has any doubts might be educated by some of the horrific statistics of sexual assault and domestic violence in the...

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Sea Creatures, Hampstead Theatre review - mysterious and allusive

Is it possible to successfully challenge naturalism in British theatre today? At a time when audiences crave feelgood dramas, uplifting musicals and classic well-made plays, there is very little room for experimental writing.Still, the Downstairs...

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Further Than the Furthest Thing, Young Vic review - small island longings

Some plays are instantly forgettable, others leave a tender fold in the memory. I well remember seeing Zinnie Harris’s evocatively titled Further Than the Furthest Thing in 2000, and marveling at its strange beauty and linguistic flair. Now revived...

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‘Stripping naked the process of making theatre’: Martin Crimp talks about his latest play

The fictional world is our world, but at the same time it’s another place. We want our writers to invent interesting characters, gripping plots and to take us to unexpected places. We want them to delight us, and sometimes to fright us. We want to...

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The P Word, Bush Theatre review - persecution and pride

Britain is a divided nation, but one of the divisions that we don’t hear that much about is that between Pakistani gay men. Written by Waleed Akhtar (who also stars in this impressively heartfelt two-hander), The P Word is about the differences in...

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Silence, Donmar Warehouse review - documenting disaster

Partition equals trauma. It cannot have escaped anyone’s attention that the British Empire’s solution to intractable problems in three of its most important colonies and mandates – namely Ireland, India and Palestine – was the divisive device of...

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