Theatre
Hamlet, Harold Pinter Theatre review - dislocatingly fresh makeoverSaturday, 17 June 2017
Midway through Hamlet a troupe of actors arrives at Elsinore. Coaching them for his own ends, the prince turns director, delivering an impassioned critique: “O! it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to... Read more... |
Tristan & Yseult, Shakespeare's Globe review - terrific visual and musical élanFriday, 16 June 2017
This show feels like an end-of-the-exams party, and in a way that’s exactly what it is. If the fruits of Emma Rice’s short tenure as Artistic Director at the Globe were a series of tests that she is deemed to have failed, then Tristan & Yseult,... Read more... |
Anatomy of a Suicide, Royal Court review - devastatingly brilliantMonday, 12 June 2017
Dorothy Parker’s take on suicide is called “Resumé”: it goes, “Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren’t lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live.” Although this seems to cover the... Read more... |
Barber Shop Chronicles, National Theatre review - foot-stompingly pleasurableThursday, 08 June 2017
The strapline for this joyful show is: “One day; six cities; a thousand stories.” Allowing for hyperbole, this is just about right. Performance poet Inua Ellams’s new show is set in a handful of cities that stretch across one part of the globe, from... Read more... |
Common, National Theatre review - Anne-Marie Duff fails to igniteWednesday, 07 June 2017
History is a tricky harlot. She is bought and sold, fought for and thrown over, seduced and betrayed – and always at the mercy of the winners. In a general election week, it is hard to deny that still now we are the progeny of the possessive... Read more... |
h.Club 100 Awards: Hope Mill Theatre, ManchesterTuesday, 06 June 2017
The Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester is an irresistible example of the can-do spirit. Less than two years ago the ground floor of a disused mill was being advertised on Gumtree as a storage space. Two actors who had been working as waiters – William... Read more... |
Annie review - a 12-year-old star is bornTuesday, 06 June 2017
Forty years after Annie swept on to Broadway, brimming with shining-faced optimism amidst wearying times, along comes Nikolai Foster's West End revival of the show to do much the same today. A tentative-seeming Miranda Hart may be the name player,... Read more... |
On the Town review - triple threat Danny Mac and co are unmissableThursday, 01 June 2017
On 8 April 1952, screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green were chatting to Charlie Chaplin at a party when he started raving about a picture he’d seen the previous night at Sam Goldwyn’s house. It was called Singin’ in the Rain – had they... Read more... |
Sand in the Sandwiches, Theatre Royal, Haymarket review - delightful but sanitisedThursday, 01 June 2017
Bard of Metroland and scourge of Slough, John Betjeman is, alongside Philip Larkin on parenthood, still one of the 20th century’s most-quoted poets. Hugh Whitemore’s play, part highlights reading and part biographical drama, offers a hugely charming... Read more... |
La Strada, The Other Palace review - Fellini's tragicomedy becomes a noisy rompThursday, 01 June 2017
Hitting the essence of a Fellini masterpiece in a different medium is no easy task. Try and reproduce his elusive brand of poetic melancholy and you'll fail; best to transfer the characters to a different medium, as the musical Sweet Charity did in... Read more... |
Killology, Royal Court review – both disturbing and life-affirmingWednesday, 31 May 2017
The monologue is a terrific theatre form. Using this narrative device, you can cover huge amounts of storytelling territory, fill in lots of background detail – and get right inside a character’s head. But the best monologues are those that... Read more... |
Jam review – obsession and resentment in the classroomMonday, 29 May 2017
When TV drama tackles Britain’s class divide, the go-to working-class type is the northerner: gritty, blunt of vowel and partial to a deep-fried Mars bar. The first and perhaps only pleasant surprise in Matt Parvin’s debut play Jam, produced by the... Read more... |
