Theatre
Returning to Haifa, Finborough Theatre review - a bumpy journey into the Arab-Israeli pastFriday, 09 March 2018
This year the state of Israel marks its 70th birthday. Which means it will also be the year Palestinians remember the Nakba, the catastrophe, the mass dispossession. With that in mind, the Public Theater in New York commissioned this adaptation of a... Read more... |
Macbeth, National Theatre - Rufus Norris goes for drab, gory and tricksyThursday, 08 March 2018
Fair is foul and foul is drab, gory and tricksy in Rufus Norris’s first stab at Shakespeare direction at the National Theatre, Macbeth. It embodies the play's most clichéd quotation (the one about sound, fury, and nada), though whether that's... Read more... |
Summer and Smoke, Almeida Theatre - exquisite renaissance of Tennessee Williams's neglected playThursday, 08 March 2018
That this 1948 Tennessee Williams play is rarely performed seems nothing short of a travesty, thanks to the awe-inspiring case made for it by Rebecca Frecknall’s exquisite Almeida production. Aided by the skyrocketing Patsy Ferran, it also makes a... Read more... |
The Best Man, Playhouse Theatre review - Gore Vidal’s plodding presidential dramaWednesday, 07 March 2018
Is it possible to get too much of American politics? With Donald Trump’s daily tweets invading our digital space, a new Kevin-Spacey-free House of Cards on the, well, cards, and new films set in Watergate times, it might be that few will have any... Read more... |
Fanny and Alexander, Old Vic review - agile but shallow Bergman adaptationFriday, 02 March 2018
Could an epic cinematic masterpiece be turned successfully into a three-act play? Confession first: Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander is my No. 1 film. On one level a slow-burn, pre-World-War-One family saga, on another a timeless human comedy... Read more... |
Harold and Maude, Charing Cross Theatre review - Sheila Hancock serene in thin productionWednesday, 28 February 2018
The practice of mining the rich seam of popular movies to turn them into stage plays or musicals seemingly never grows tired in theatreland. And sometimes it produces a gem but all too often it’s just a cynical ploy to attract ticket sales by piggy-... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Minsk: feasting with Belarus Free TheatreMonday, 26 February 2018
Budzma! (Cheers!) At a long, food-laden table in a noisy room of Minsk, the capital of Belarus, a toast is proposed. We clink glasses and drain moonshine. This happens once, twice, five, 10 times. Between the toasts comes a wave of passionate... Read more... |
'The greatest play ever written': translating The Cherry OrchardSaturday, 24 February 2018
“The Cherry Orchard is the greatest play ever written,” I declared, confidently, aged 16, to my mother, having just read The Cherry Orchard for the first time. She responded to my claim with a non-committal snort – remembering, perhaps, the... Read more... |
Frozen, Haymarket Theatre review - star cast explores the reality of evilWednesday, 21 February 2018
Whatever the weather, this week is Frozen. On Broadway, the Disney musical of that name begins previews, but let’s let that go. In the West End, our Frozen has no Elsa, no Anna and no glittery gowns. Although it does have plenty of ice imagery. No,... Read more... |
The B*easts, Bush Theatre review - Monica Dolan is almost flawlessTuesday, 20 February 2018
Lila had breast implants at the age of eight. Karen, her mother, is required to take psychotherapy sessions on account of the fact that she arranged for the operation. Tessa (played by Monica Dolan, pictured top and below) is a psychotherapist who... Read more... |
Angry, Southwark Playhouse review – wondrously roaring RidleylandSaturday, 17 February 2018
Monologues are very much the flavour of the start of this theatrical year. At the Royal Court, we have Carey Mulligan in Dennis Kelly’s brilliant Girls & Boys, coming hot on the tottering heels of Anoushka Warden’s My Mum’s a Twat, while at the... Read more... |
Girls & Boys, Royal Court review - Carey Mulligan is stunningly brilliantFriday, 16 February 2018
This is Carey Mulligan week. She appears, improbably enough, as a hard-nosed cop in David Hare’s BBC thriller Collateral, as well as onstage at the Royal Court in London’s Sloane Square (she’s much better live than on film). In a 90-minute monologue... Read more... |
