Theatre
The Thunder Girls, The Lowry, Salford review - all-girl solidarityFriday, 27 September 2019
An all-girl rock group from the 1980s meet again, 30 years after an acrimonious break-up brought their shared stage career to an end … and the sparks fly as old resentments resurface and the bitterness of life’s blows emerges. Will their one-time... Read more... |
Two Ladies, Bridge Theatre review - Cvitešić and Wanamaker really rockThursday, 26 September 2019
Are first ladies second-class citizens? Do they always have to stand behind their husbands? What are they really like as people? Questions such as these have inspired Irish playwright Nancy Harris to explore the relationship between two fictional... Read more... |
Blood Wedding, Young Vic review - inventive, poetic if over-stretched revival of Lorca's rural tragedyThursday, 26 September 2019
Earthiness, lyricism, fatalism, the undeniable force of passion, of ecstatic attraction, known as "duende": these are the familiar ingredients of Lorca's plays set in rural Spain. Blood Wedding, written in 1932, was the first, followed by Yerma two... Read more... |
Mother of Him, Park Theatre review – lean domestic drama unsure where it standsWednesday, 25 September 2019
Mother of Him was written a decade ago, but its most prescient moment happens in the first five minutes of Max Lindsay's production at the Park Theatre. Brenda Kapowitz (Tracy-Ann Oberman) presents a sheaf of papers to Robert (Simon Hepworth, ... Read more... |
Youth Without God, Coronet Theatre review - the chill control of nascent NazismTuesday, 24 September 2019
The only novel by the Hungarian dramatist Ödön von Horváth, Youth Without God was written in exile after he fled Anschluss Vienna and published in 1938, shortly before his death. In the English-speaking world, we know von Horváth for his plays,... Read more... |
The Permanent Way, The Vaults review – devastating resurrection of play tackling corporate greedFriday, 20 September 2019
The Permanent Way first roared its way into the national consciousness in 2003 when, after a triumphant opening in York, it toured the UK before transferring to the National Theatre. Under theatre director Max Stafford-Clark’s... Read more... |
Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story, Wilton's Music Hall review - klezmer revue is moving and inventiveFriday, 20 September 2019
Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s “refugee musical” – now there’s a phrase you don’t expect to write – is a treat. Harking back to the early 20th century pogroms of Eastern Europe, it’s darkly steeped in history, conveying the sorrows of... Read more... |
Big the Musical, Dominion Theatre review - sweet if wildly overstretchedWednesday, 18 September 2019
The work isn't finished on Big, if this stage musical of the beloved 1988 Tom Hanks film is ever to, um, make it big. A Broadway flop in 1996 where it was among the last shows directed by the late, much-admired Englishman Mike Ockrent, the material... Read more... |
Faith, Hope & Charity, National Theatre review - a grim compassionWednesday, 18 September 2019
Alexander Zeldin continues his devastating analysis of modern Britain in this culminating play of a (very loose) trilogy that started with 2014’s Beyond Caring, followed by LOVE two years after that. These are bleak dramas that show human... Read more... |
Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of), Bristol Old Vic review - Jane Austen as shallow romcomMonday, 16 September 2019
It is a truth perhaps not quite but almost universally accepted that Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, beloved of GSCE English Lit examiners, and often adapted for the screen, is a part of the canon, waiting to be re-interpreted according to the... Read more... |
Amsterdam, Orange Tree Theatre review - suffocatingly manneredSaturday, 14 September 2019
An excellent director makes a rare misstep with Amsterdam, in which a compelling if tricksy play is given an arch and mannered production that only distances the audience further. Not to be confused with either Rotterdam or Europe, two similarly... Read more... |
What Girls Are Made Of, Soho Theatre review - euphoric gig-theatreFriday, 13 September 2019
It’s now Edinburgh Fringe transfer season in London, but here’s one they made earlier: Cora Bissett’s Fringe First-winning autobiographical play from the 2018 Festival about her time in 1990s indie band Darlingheart. Though the broad shape of this... Read more... |
