Theatre
When Winston Went to War with the Wireless, Donmar Warehouse review - lively, but messyWednesday, 05 July 2023
Can things change, or must they always stay the same? The latest history play by Jack Thorne, a man of the moment whose Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is still in the West End and whose National Theatre hit The Motive and the Cue will transfer in... Read more... |
A Playlist for the Revolution, Bush Theatre review - idealism meets reality head-onTuesday, 04 July 2023
The revolution in the title of AJ Yi’s new play at the Bush is the one activists hoped to set in motion in Hong Kong in 2019, when China’s stewardship was increasingly restricting their civil liberties. The music on the playlist serves as an... Read more... |
The Swell, Orange Tree Theatre review - mind-bending romantic dramaMonday, 03 July 2023
There are some songs, and singers, that make your heart swell. One of them, for me, is Ani DiFranco’s 1998 single “Little Plastic Castle”, so I was delighted to see that Isley Lynn, in the playtext of her new show at the Orange Tree Theatre, has... Read more... |
Song from Far Away, Hampstead Theatre review - gentle monologue from a man grappling with griefMonday, 03 July 2023
Lucky Will Young: the production of the Simon Stephens monologue Song from Far Away that he is delivering at the Hampstead Theatre is directed by Kirk Jameson, not Ivo van Hove.The modish Dutch director of the initial UK staging, seen at the Young... Read more... |
A Strange Loop, Barbican review - Black queer musical with confusing concept but an excellent leadSaturday, 01 July 2023
If you are going to see A Strange Loop, the new American musical trailing a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize that has arrived at the Barbican, here’s a checklist of topics to make sure you are on top of first: intersectionality, Harriet Tubman,... Read more... |
Theatre at Glastonbury Festival 2023 - so big and wild a hallucination, you're always left wanting moreThursday, 29 June 2023
And that’s it again for another year. Oh Glastonbury. A fever dream where the time of reality stops as you hop on a ride to a land of magic.Yes, it might be celebrated for its musical marvels (Elton John, surely, the set of 2023 that will make the... Read more... |
Stumped, Hampstead Theatre review - Beckett and Pinter, waiting for DoggoWednesday, 28 June 2023
Much of cricket comprises waiting – you wait on the boundary to hear news of the toss, you wait your turn to bat, you heed the call of your batting partner to wait to see if a run is on, you wait for the rain to stop. A friend once told me that he... Read more... |
Robin Hood. The Legend. Re-written, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - no bullseye for new take on familiar charactersMonday, 26 June 2023
After the pantos, the movies (epic, camp and animated) and the television series, is there anything new to be mined in the story of Robin Hood? Probably not, as this messy, misjudged show takes that hope and fires an arrow through its heart.We’re in... Read more... |
The Pillowman, Duke of York’s Theatre review - starry but slackFriday, 23 June 2023
British theatre is getting a bit timid – is that right? Ahead of the opening of this revival of Martin McDonagh’s unforgettable 2003 masterpiece, The Pillowman, its director Matthew Dunster has spoken of the tendency of playwrights and theatres... Read more... |
Mrs Doubtfire, Shaftesbury Theatre review - bold musical makeover of the hit comic filmFriday, 23 June 2023
The heart sinks (mine does, anyway) as the latest film-to-musical adaptation rolls into town, all with similar sound-worlds, exemplary hoofing and lively stagings. They are handy audience-bait, oven-ready stories. People go to see how the creative... Read more... |
Dear England, National Theatre review - filtering the national narrative through sportWednesday, 21 June 2023
"Is everything loss?" the great Oliver Ford Davies once asked on the National's Olivier stage, in the closing moment of David Hare's masterful Racing Demon. That question informs another masterful play, James Graham's Dear England, newly opened... Read more... |
School Girls, Lyric Hammersmith review - an African Mean Girls with added biteTuesday, 20 June 2023
The alternative title of Jocelyn Bioh’s 2017 play School Girls, The African Mean Girls Play, might indicate that it’s a super-bitchy account of high-school rivalries, here with a west African accent. Which it is. But it’s much more besides. The... Read more... |
