Theatre
Clutch, Bush Theatre review - new comedy-drama passes its testThursday, 22 September 2022
Max is big and black and Tyler is slight and (very) white, an odd couple trapped in a dual-control car as Max barks out his instructions and Tyler prepares for his driving test. If their relationship is to get started, like the clutch of the... Read more... |
Bright Half Life, Kings Head Theatre review - ups and downs of a tender lesbian love affairMonday, 19 September 2022
A tender love story has arrived at the Kings Head theatre from the US, where its author, Tanya Barfield, is an award-winning playwright for both television and theatre. The plot is simple: two women — one white, one Black — meet in an office where... Read more... |
Handbagged, Kiln Theatre review - triumphant revival of Moira Buffini's comedySaturday, 17 September 2022
It’s only nine years since Moira Buffini’s Handbagged had its premiere at Kilburn’s Tricycle theatre (renamed the Kiln in 2018), but it triumphantly returns to the same venue as a copper-bottomed classic. Its timing is uncanny: Margaret Thatcher was... Read more... |
The P Word, Bush Theatre review - persecution and prideSaturday, 17 September 2022
Britain is a divided nation, but one of the divisions that we don’t hear that much about is that between Pakistani gay men. Written by Waleed Akhtar (who also stars in this impressively heartfelt two-hander), The P Word is about the differences in... Read more... |
The Snail House, Hampstead Theatre - perplexing new drama that lacks biteFriday, 16 September 2022
Hell hath no fury like a teenager scorned. In this perplexing play, we see a highly successful doctor put on trial by his rebellious 18-year-old daughter and found miserably wanting. Ibsen’s influence hangs heavily over an evening in which Sir Neil... Read more... |
The Two Popes, Rose Theatre review - sparkling with wit and pathosThursday, 15 September 2022
It can’t have been an easy pitch. “Popes. Both foreign, yes. German and Argentinian – sorry, can’t change either. Eighty-something and the other’s a decade younger. Mainly just talking about their pasts and their different approaches to Roman... Read more... |
Antigone, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - Sophocles rewritten with purpose and panacheWednesday, 14 September 2022
Antigone, the forceful young woman who takes on the male establishment, has long resonated with idealists; Sophocles' play, written about 441 BCE, has been revived and adapted frequently, often reflecting different times and causes. Among others,... Read more... |
The Clinic, Almeida Theatre review - race and the status quoWednesday, 14 September 2022
As Dipa Baruwa-Etti’s latest play, The Clinic, reminds us, the Tory party has a strong showing of Black MPs – Badenoch, Cleverly, Kwarteng. It was finished long before the latest Cabinet appointments, but presciently picked those three names, all... Read more... |
Walking with Ghosts, Apollo Theatre review - a beguiling Gabriel Byrne opens upMonday, 12 September 2022
Gabriel Byrne is not a typical film star. From his breakthrough as the lustful and doomed Uther Pendragon in Excalibur, via his iconic Prohibition-era gangster in the Coen brothers’ Miller’s Crossing and the wickedly twisty ... Read more... |
Who Killed My Father, Young Vic review - Hans Kesting excels in this solo showFriday, 09 September 2022
A bare interior with tarnished walls, a single bed, and an oxygen tube. The stage seems to have been set for a Beckett play, but the figure who comes to inhabit this dejected enclosure for 90 minutes is grounded in a far different world.Powerful... Read more... |
Silence, Donmar Warehouse review - documenting disasterThursday, 08 September 2022
Partition equals trauma. It cannot have escaped anyone’s attention that the British Empire’s solution to intractable problems in three of its most important colonies and mandates – namely Ireland, India and Palestine – was the divisive device of... Read more... |
I, Joan, Shakespeare's Globe review - a non-binary retelling that's as ebullient as it's irreverentFriday, 02 September 2022
This raw, joyous, irreverent take on Joan of Arc made headlines before opening night for its depiction of the fifteenth-century warrior saint as non-binary. Yet what shines out in Charlie Josephine’s fresh, deliberately pared-down script is that all... Read more... |
