Royal Court
Rare Earth Mettle, Royal Court review - one long unsatisfying slogFriday, 19 November 2021
Why are we indifferent to anti-Semitism? In the past few weeks the Royal Court, a proud citadel of wokeness, has been embroiled in an appalling case of prejudice by allowing a character, who is a really bad billionaire, in Al Smith’s new play, Rare... Read more... |
What If If Only, Royal Court review - short if not sweetTuesday, 05 October 2021
Few sights speak so eloquently of loss, of an especially cruel and painful loss, as one glass of wine, half-full, alone on a table. A man speaks to a partner who isn’t there, wishes her back, but knows that she has gone. Then another woman... Read more... |
Curious, Soho Theatre review - a young playwright puts herself centre-stageMonday, 04 October 2021
Jasmine Lee-Jones has a hard act to follow – namely, herself. Her award-winning 2019 debut play, seven methods of killing kylie jenner, announced the arrival at the Royal Court of a blistering writing talent whose two sparring women made... Read more... |
Is God Is, Royal Court review – blister, flare and burn, baby, burnThursday, 16 September 2021
God is a tricky one. Or should that be One? And definitely not a He. So when she says take revenge, then vengeance is definitely not only hers, but ours too. American playwright Aleshea Harris’s dazzlingly satirical 2018 extravaganza is about two... Read more... |
Constellations, Vaudeville Theatre review - a starry revivalFriday, 02 July 2021
A cosmologist and a beekeeper walk into a barbecue. Or a wedding. The beekeeper is in a relationship, or married, or just out of a relationship, or married again. The cosmologist shares the secret of the universe with him: it’s impossible to lick... Read more... |
Living Newspaper, Edition 3, Royal Court online review – bleak news, sharp wordsSaturday, 03 April 2021
“The crocus of hope is, er, poking through the frost.” When he uttered that dodgy metaphor back in February, Boris Johnson probably didn’t predict that it would become the opening number of the third edition of Living Newspaper, the Royal Court’s... Read more... |
Living Newspaper: A Counter Narrative, Royal Court online review – the news, but betterThursday, 24 December 2020
Edition 2 of Living Newspaper: A Counter Narrative, an experimental new piece of online theatre from the Royal Court, doesn’t mess around. Within minutes, a cry of "Tory scum" is echoing around the Jerwood Theatre – the refrain of an anarchic... Read more... |
My White Best Friend (And Other Letters Left Unsaid), Royal Court review – raw but generousWednesday, 22 July 2020
The strength of the response to the re-emergence of the Black Lives Matter campaign has provoked some theatres to create provocative new work. Often, the keynote is personal feeling. One recent example is the Bush Theatre’s Protest: Black Lives... Read more... |
Cyprus Avenue, Royal Court Theatre online review - a mind in mesmerising meltdownTuesday, 07 April 2020
One of the most blistering stage performances in recent memory gets a renewed lease on life with the streaming of the 2019 screen version, aired last autumn on BBC Four, of Cyprus Avenue, the David Ireland play in which Stephen Rea unravels to... Read more... |
Shoe Lady, Royal Court review - Katherine Parkinson is a footsore BeckettianTuesday, 10 March 2020
On my way to see this show, I see an urban fox. Before I can take a photo, it scrambles away. And I'm sure that, as it goes, it winks at me. This weird moment is a great prologue to EV Crowe's new play, virtually a monologue starring Katherine... Read more... |
Scenes with Girls, Royal Court review - feminist separatism 2.0Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Last night, I discovered the gasp index. Or maybe just re-discovered. The what? The gasp index. It's when you see a show that keeps making you exhale, sometimes audibly, sometimes quietly. Tonight I gasped about five times, then I stopped counting... Read more... |
A Kind of People, Royal Court review - multiculturalism falls apartThursday, 12 December 2019
The trouble with prejudice is that you can't control how other people see you. At the start of her career, playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's work was set in her own Sikh community. But, like other playwrights from similar backgrounds, she has tended... Read more... |
