Theatre
First Person: Director Maria Aberg on drawing fresh inspiration for the futureSaturday, 12 June 2021
When theatres in the UK closed last March, I found myself in a vacuum. Having been a freelance theatre director for over 15 years, I was used to busy – juggling a hectic schedule of directing shows with the reality of being a mum to two toddlers.... Read more... |
First Person: playwright Tanika Gupta on being back in the rehearsal room once moreMonday, 07 June 2021
On the first day of rehearsals for Out West at the Lyric Hammersmith in May, myself and fellow playwrights Roy Williams and Simon Stephens stood, masked up and lateral flow tested for Covid, and listened as the Lyric Hammersmith's artistic director... Read more... |
The Death of a Black Man, Hampstead Theatre review - blistering theatre with an unflinching visionSaturday, 05 June 2021
This blistering, fearless play about an 18-year-old black entrepreneur on the King’s Road raises a myriad of uncomfortable questions that resonate profoundly with the Black Lives Matter debate. It’s just one remarkable aspect of The Death of a Black... Read more... |
Four Quartets, Theatre Royal Bath review - Ralph Fiennes gives a compelling performanceFriday, 04 June 2021
For 75 captivating minutes, Ralph Fiennes digs deep into TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, the poet’s interlinked reflections on time, faith and the quest for spiritual enlightenment – in what is the first solo adaptation of Eliot’s work for the stage, a co... Read more... |
Walden, Harold Pinter Theatre review – where’s the emotion?Monday, 31 May 2021
There’s something definitely inspiring about producer Sonia Friedman’s decision to reopen one of her prime West End venues with a season, called RE:EMERGE, of three new plays. The first drama is American playwright Amy Berryman’s ambitious debut,... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's Globe review - a blast of colour from our post-vaccine futureSaturday, 29 May 2021
A little less than two years after Sean Holmes’s kick-ass Latin American carnival-style A Midsummer Night’s Dream erupted at the side of the Thames, it has returned to a very different world. It’s no longer a natural expression of the kind of... Read more... |
Bergen International Festival, 26 May - 9 June preview - Norway meets AmericaWednesday, 26 May 2021
Bergen International Festival, the largest curated festival for music and performing arts in the Nordic region, launches on 26 May at 11:30 GMT+1 with an opening ceremony – with free digital access – hosted by trumpet player Tine Thing... Read more... |
Harm, Bush Theatre review – isolation, infatuation and intensityMonday, 24 May 2021
After months of watching theatre on screens large, medium and tiny, I definitely feel great about going to see a live show again. Of course, it’s not the usual theatre experience, you know, the one with crowds milling around the bar, people... Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet, Creation Theatre online review - game version falls between stoolsMonday, 17 May 2021
There is a promising production struggling to get out of this muddled concept. Creation Theatre (here partnered with Watford Palace) is well known for innovative, site-specific pieces, one of which –The Tempest – was adapted for the screen,... Read more... |
Being Mr Wickham, Original Theatre Company online review - an uncontroversial apologiaTuesday, 04 May 2021
It wasn’t Jane Austen’s subtlest move, naming her roguish soldier George Wickham. As countless GCSE English teachers have patiently read in generations of essays, his surname sounds a lot like "wicked" – and wicked he is. Adrian Lukis, who played... Read more... |
Money, Southwark Playhouse online review - ethical dilemmas for the Zoom generationMonday, 03 May 2021
To accept or not accept a donation: that’s certainly the burning political question of the moment. So Isla van Tricht’s play Money – specially designed for Zoom – has proven more timely than even perhaps she suspected, though the question is made... Read more... |
Tarantula, Southwark Playhouse online review – spine-tingling love and traumaMonday, 03 May 2021
I think I can safely say that polymath playwright Philip Ridley has had a good lockdown. In March last year, when The Beast of Blue Yonder, his new show for Southwark Playhouse, was closed due to the pandemic, he came up with an idea called The... Read more... |
