Theatre
It's Headed Straight Towards Us, Park Theatre review - indigestible mix of fact and fictionThursday, 21 September 2023
An impressive performance by Samuel West as one of two warring hams stuck on-set in a trailer over a not-so-dormant volcano in Iceland, endlessly waiting to shoot their scene and go home, tended by a young runner whose woke values soon clash with... Read more... |
The White Factory, Marylebone Theatre review - what price dignity in hell?Thursday, 21 September 2023
This powerful play’s immediate backstory, with Moscow sentencing its author to eight years’ jail and its director going into forced exile, is not its immediate theme – and all the better for it, for how can anyone yet make any authentic dramatic... Read more... |
Pygmalion, Old Vic review - zappy wit and emotional intelligenceWednesday, 20 September 2023
Many of us have perhaps grown too accustomed to the friendly face of My Fair Lady. George Bernard Shaw’s very original play is sharper, less sentimental yet ultimately more profoundly human. Its wit and wisdom zip along in Richard Jones’s... Read more... |
anthropology, Hampstead Theatre review - AI thriller runs out of codeWednesday, 20 September 2023
With more than 20 plays under her belt, San-Francisco based Lauren Gunderson is one of the most produced playwrights in the US. But she’s chosen London to premier her very topical new thriller. It’s a sign of a good writer that they can touch... Read more... |
The Little Big Things, @sohoplace review - real-life story movingly realised onstageTuesday, 19 September 2023
It's rare that a new musical or play opens in the West End with as much positive word-of-mouth as The Little Big Things. Social media has been ablaze over the last few weeks, with critics and bloggers sneaking into previews and authoritative big... Read more... |
The Old Man and the Pool, Wyndham's Theatre - Mike Birbiglia makes a big splashSaturday, 16 September 2023
Few comedians are such good company that you never want them to stop. The young Billy Connolly was one such; affable American Mike Birbiglia is another. He’s often billed as a master storyteller, which is very true, but doesn’t necessarily... Read more... |
The Father and the Assassin, National Theatre review - Gandhi's killer given an outstanding star turnSaturday, 16 September 2023
From the moment that the blood-stained Nathuram Godse rises out of the floor of the National Theatre's Olivier stage and demands ‘What are you staring at? Have you never seen a murderer up close before?’, we are locked into a queasy, teasing... Read more... |
That Face, Orange Tree Theatre review - in-yer-face family dramaFriday, 15 September 2023
Playwright Polly Stenham MBE had a meteoric rise with this play, her award-winning 2007 debut which she wrote aged 19 and whose original Royal Court cast featured Lyndsay Duncan and Matt Smith, and earned a much-lauded West End transfer. I remember... Read more... |
Infamous, Jermyn Street Theatre review - Lady Hamilton challenges the patriarchy and losesThursday, 14 September 2023
Towards the end of the 18th century, Lady Emma Hamilton (like so much in this woman's life, hers was a title achieved as much as bestowed) was the “It Girl” of European society.They’ve always been around – women who have the combination of... Read more... |
Private Lives, Ambassador's Theatre review - classy revival lacking physical excessThursday, 14 September 2023
There is a grainy piece of black and white film on YouTube featuring Noel Coward as the celebrity guest on a 1964 edition of the popular television panel show, What's My Line. He signs in with panache, paying careful attention to the diaeresis over... Read more... |
God of Carnage, Lyric Hammersmith review - a dark piece is lightened with slapstickSaturday, 09 September 2023
Yasmin Reza’s God of Carnage (2008), like her British megahit, 1994’s Art, is not strictly a comedy. The French dramatist likes to create gladiatorial spaces disguised as chic living-rooms, where the professional classes slug it out, chewing their... Read more... |
As You Like It, Shakespeare's Globe review - vibrant, ebullient fun in a forest where anything goesTuesday, 05 September 2023
To proclaim that you’re playing gender games with Shakespeare’s As You Like It seems a little like announcing that you have a bicycle with two wheels, or indeed that you’re doing something interesting with rhythms in Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.Let’... Read more... |
