Theatre
Uncle Vanya, Harold Pinter Theatre review - a superlative company achievementFriday, 24 January 2020
Uncle Vanya must surely be the closest, the most essential of Chekhov’s plays, its cast – just four main players who are caught up in the drama's fraught emotional action, and four who are essentially supporting – a concentrated unit even by the... Read more... |
The Sunset Limited, Boulevard Theatre review - all talk, no theatreFriday, 24 January 2020
Cormac McCarthy’s two-hander, premiered at Chicago's mighty Steppenwolf Theatre in 2006, has by this point been everything short of an ice ballet: a self-described “novel in dramatic form”, as one might expect from the American author of such titles... Read more... |
The Welkin, National Theatre review - women's labour is a painThursday, 23 January 2020
History plays should perform a delicate balancing act: they have to tell us something worth knowing about the past, that foreign country where they do things differently, and also something about our current preoccupations. Otherwise, what's the... Read more... |
Scenes with Girls, Royal Court review - feminist separatism 2.0Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Last night, I discovered the gasp index. Or maybe just re-discovered. The what? The gasp index. It's when you see a show that keeps making you exhale, sometimes audibly, sometimes quietly. Tonight I gasped about five times, then I stopped counting... Read more... |
You Stupid Darkness!, Southwark Playhouse review - an intriguing muddleTuesday, 21 January 2020
Armageddon would appear to be at the gates in Sam Steiner’s intriguing if ramshackle play, a co-production between Paines Plough and Theatre Royal, Plymouth, that has reached London while still seeming a draft or so away from achieving its full... Read more... |
Rags: The Musical, Park Theatre review - a timely, if predictable, immigrant taleMonday, 20 January 2020
“Take our country back!” is the rallying cry of the self-identified “real” Americans gathered to protest the arrival of immigrants. It could be a contemporary Trump rally – or, indeed, the nastier side of current British political discourse – but in... Read more... |
Les Misérables, Sondheim Theatre review - join in our crusadeFriday, 17 January 2020
Do you hear the people sing? In recent months, you're more likely to have heard news stories about the longest running West End musical than the actual music. Stephen Sondheim – who celebrates his 90th birthday in March – missed the gala opening of... Read more... |
Scrounger, Finborough Theatre review - uncomfortable play tackles disability discriminationTuesday, 14 January 2020
Scrounger is no comfortable evening in the theatre, for reasons both intentional and inadvertent. Athena Stevens’ new play recounts her 2016 battle with British Airways and London City Airport, who subjected her to the humiliation of being... Read more... |
Magic Goes Wrong, Vaudeville Theatre review - entertaining spoofFriday, 10 January 2020
Mischief Theatre's “Goes Wrong” oeuvre is now well established: broad humour combined with physical comedy and slapstick mishaps. Magic Goes Wrong, though, is the company's first outside collaboration – with American magicians Penn & Teller,... Read more... |
The Tyler Sisters, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs review – raucous celebration of sisterhoodWednesday, 08 January 2020
The Tyler sisters start as they mean to go on: bickering. Middle sister Gail (Bryony Hannah) has come home from uni to find that youngest Katrina (Angela Griffin) has stolen her room. “What about Maddy’s? Why didn’t you take that?” Gail snaps. “She... Read more... |
Celebrating the musicals of Jerry Herman (1931-2019)Friday, 03 January 2020
How is it that, in the nearly 900 pages of Sondheim's collected lyrics with extensive comments Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat, with numerous special boxes celebrating other composers and lyricists, he managed to mention Jerry Herman only... Read more... |
Best of 2019: TheatreSaturday, 28 December 2019
Political dysfunction and societal distress led many amongst us to the brink this year, so where better than the theatre to find succour if not always solace in the abundantly thoughtful offerings of a creative community as often as not working at... Read more... |
