Theatre
Goats, Royal Court review - unfocused and muddledSaturday, 02 December 2017
The civil war in Syria spawns image after image of hell on earth. Staging the stories of that conflict presents a challenge to playwrights: how do you write about horror in a way that is both accurate and entertaining? Goats, by Syrian playwright... Read more... |
A Christmas Carol, Old Vic review - Rhys Ifans takes on Scrooge, triumphantlyThursday, 30 November 2017
Fresh from the success of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Jack Thorne now gives us his exuberant adaptation of another much-loved text. Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol is the well-worn morality fable seared into our collective memory... Read more... |
Inside Pussy Riot, Saatchi Gallery review - an immersive misfireWednesday, 29 November 2017
You say you want a revolution? Good luck locating one amid the tonally muddled Inside Pussy Riot. The immersive production from Les Enfants Terribles takes audiences on a promenade-style journey through the terrifyingly true story of Nadya... Read more... |
'She has escaped from my Asylum!': The Woman in White returnsTuesday, 28 November 2017
The Woman in White insists on being told and retold. Wilkie Collins’s much loved thriller is perhaps the most widely and frequently adapted of all the great Victorian novels. In Marian Halcombe it has a resourceful heroine whose appeal doesn't rest... Read more... |
David Edgar: 'Ebenezer Scrooge is alive and well'Monday, 27 November 2017
Since mid-August, I’ve been doing something I swore I’d never do again. I’ve been rehearsing a new adaptation of a novel by Charles Dickens. Sometime in the autumn of 1979, I received a phone call from Trevor Nunn, artistic director of the Royal... Read more... |
The Secret Theatre, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - a ferocious topical satire dressed up in period costumeFriday, 24 November 2017
The Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse may be a historical recreation, but the same shouldn’t be true of the plays staged within it. Since it opened in 2014, this atmospheric space has spawned a whole sub-genre of historical new-writing – works that... Read more... |
Everybody's Talking About Jamie, Apollo Theatre review - inclusive and utterly joyfulThursday, 23 November 2017
Everybody’s been talking about Everybody’s Talking About Jamie since its Sheffield Crucible debut earlier this year. It’s unusual to see a musical come steaming into the West End based on word on mouth – not star casting, or association with an... Read more... |
Bad Roads, Royal Court, review – memorably unsettlingThursday, 23 November 2017
War is morally acidic: it dissolves social rules, loosens inhibitions and gives permission to men to behave like animals. And the people who have to put up with this deluge of amorality and abuse are, of course, women. It is one of the strengths of... Read more... |
Tiger Bay, Wales Millennium Centre review - ambitious but flawed spectacleFriday, 17 November 2017
During the 19th century, Tiger Bay in Cardiff was the beating heart of the Industrial Revolution and the most multicultural area in Britain. Visit today and the only signs remaining are the odd gothic buildings that sit between Doctor Who... Read more... |
Network, National Theatre review - Bryan Cranston’s searing London stage debutTuesday, 14 November 2017
Outrage knows no time barrier, as the world at large reminds us on a daily basis. So what better moment for the National Theatre to fashion for the internet age a stage adaptation of Network, the much-laureled 1976 celluloid satire about lunacy... Read more... |
Poison, Orange Tree Theatre review - study of grief is both courageous and subtleTuesday, 14 November 2017
Should Brexit ministers need help understanding the cultural mindset of their continental counterparts, they might consider a subscription to the Orange Tree, the compact Richmond producing house that is defiantly opening its arms to Europe. This... Read more... |
Coriolanus, Barbican review - great, late Shakespeare compels but doesn't stunMonday, 13 November 2017
Coriolanus is post-tragic. It never horrifies like Macbeth or appals like King Lear, though its self-damaging protagonist is disconcerting enough. Shakespeare had written the signature dark dramas by 1606, including the most magnificent of the four... Read more... |
