Theatre
When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, Dorfman Theatre review - Cate Blanchett's underwhelming debut at the NationalThursday, 24 January 2019
When it was announced that Cate Blanchett was making her National Theatre debut with Martin's Crimp's new play, When We have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, its website exploded with people wishing to buy tickets. To those many thousands... Read more... |
Violet, Charing Cross Theatre review - Jeanine Tesori's faith musical is a gentle pleasureTuesday, 22 January 2019
Following Caroline, or Change and Fun Home, the UK is blessed with another work from American composer Jeanine Tesori; this is the British premiere of her 1997 musical Violet, which had a Sutton Foster-starring Broadway production in 2014. If not as... Read more... |
The Unreturning, Theatre Royal Stratford East review - hymn to homeFriday, 18 January 2019
Nadia Fall is a good thing. Her appointment as the artistic director of this venue, with her first season having begun in September last year, has been widely seen as part of a new wave of cultural leaders who are expected to shake up the country's... Read more... |
The Daughter-in-Law, Arcola Theatre review - searing simplicityThursday, 17 January 2019
There’s a stark power to Jack Gamble’s production of DH Lawrence’s The Daughter-in-Law, which has transferred to the Arcola’smain stage after an acclaimed opening run in the venue’s downstairs studio last May. It still plays with a concentrated... Read more... |
Stop and Search, Arcola Theatre review - a murky view of modern-day BritainWednesday, 16 January 2019
A road tunnel through the Alps, stretching underneath Mont Blanc: Tel (Shaun Mason) is ploughing home to London in a borrowed Merc, strung out and sleepless and having been to see his other girl in Monte Carlo. The Arcola Theatre premiere of Stop... Read more... |
Rosenbaum's Rescue, Park Theatre review - curiously solid Jewish dramaWednesday, 16 January 2019
Theatrical alchemy is eternally slippery. On paper Rosenbaum’s Rescue at the Park Theatre looks like an excellent proposition – a play that switches between 1943, when seven and a half thousand Jews were rescued from the German occupation of Denmark... Read more... |
Approaching Empty, Kiln Theatre review - more minicab than UberTuesday, 15 January 2019
Write what you know, says the adage, and that's exactly what playwright Ishy Din has done with his new play, Approaching Empty, now at the Kiln in Kilburn. The middle-aged Middlesbrough-born writer, who has had a handful of casual jobs (retail,... Read more... |
Coming Clean, Trafalgar Studios review - Kevin Elyot play has lost the pathos if not the plotTuesday, 15 January 2019
Time and a transfer haven't been kind to this well-meaning but surface-thin revival of Coming Clean, the 1982 Kevin Elyot play that is surely more poignant than is ever apparent here. Two summers ago, much the same cast found a better-calibrated way... Read more... |
Time Is Love/Tiempo es Amor, Finborough Theatre review - sultry yet staticMonday, 14 January 2019
Confessions first: I fell asleep mid-way through Time Is Love/Tiempo es Amor, from too much time on trains and planes over the New Year. I was kindly allowed back for a second visit to the Finborough Theatre show, for a Sunday matinee, dosed with... Read more... |
Aspects of Love, Southwark Playhouse review - discourse keeps passion at bayFriday, 11 January 2019
“Love Changes Everything”, as immortalised by Michael Ball, is the most enduring feature of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Don Black and Charles Hart’s 1989 musical – a moderate West End success, and a Broadway flop. Jonathan O’Boyle’s production, seen last... Read more... |
Pinters Five and Six, Harold Pinter Theatre review - superlatively acted esotericaTuesday, 08 January 2019
The scintillating, commercially bold season of Pinter one-acts at the theatre bearing his name plays a particular blinder with Pinter Five (★★★★★), from which I emerged keen to engage with its mystery and breadth of feeling all over again. Pinter... Read more... |
Best of 2018: TheatreSunday, 30 December 2018
Will pride of place amongst theatre productions every year go in perpetuity to the work of Stephen Sondheim? One might be tempted to think so given the preeminence during 2017 of Dominic Cooke's breathtaking revival of Follies (due back in the... Read more... |
