Theatre Reviews
My Country; A Work in Progress, National TheatreSaturday, 11 March 2017
Oh dear. The first play explicitly about Brexit is being staged by the National Theatre in a production that has all the acrid flavour of virtue signalling. It is well known that in the wake of the referendum vote to Leave the European Union on 23 June last year, shock waves affected artists all over the nation. Read more... |
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Harold Pinter TheatreFriday, 10 March 2017
Martha is described in the script of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as "a large, boisterous woman...ample but not fleshy". Imelda Staunton is petite, neat and trim, not obvious casting for the female lead in Edward Albee's most famous play. But she has formidable, coiled-spring energy and, when she wishes, a rasping voice that can cut like a hacksaw. She is less a blousy seductress, more a quick, flick-tongued viper. Martha's husband George should be "thin, hair going grey". Read more... |
Limehouse, Donmar WarehouseThursday, 09 March 2017
Politics is a serious business, but it’s also a spectator sport. Think of the duels in Prime Minister’s Questions; or the marathon that is Brexit. It’s a place of cartoon villains (Corbyn), straight villains (Trump) and plain cartoons (Boris). Read more... |
I'm Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Finborough TheatreThursday, 09 March 2017
In I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Halley Feiffer has written a right curmudgeon of a central role. David is a successful playwright, a Pulitzer Prize-winner who has no difficulty slotting himself directly into the great American drama tradition. He’s also such a testy individual that even being in the same room as him for very long is an endurance. Read more... |
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Old VicWednesday, 08 March 2017
To the list of abiding theatrical partnerships one must surely add Tom Stoppard and the director David Leveaux. From his Tony-winning revival of The Real Thing onwards to Jumpers and Arcadia, all of which played both London and Broadway, Leveaux has proved a particularly dab hand at mining this playwright in all his near-infinite variety. Read more... |
A Profoundly Affectionate, Passionate Devotion to Someone (–noun), Royal Court TheatreTuesday, 07 March 2017
Love, we know, will tear us apart again. And again. And yet again. It will shred our nerves and rip through our guts; it will fill us with anguish, and then douse us in regrets. It will expose our weaknesses, and then make us say what we can never unsay. It will embattle our egos, and then stamp on our ids. It will. It really will. Read more... |
Othello, Tobacco Factory, BristolMonday, 06 March 2017
Intimacy is a mixed blessing: Richard Twyman’s close-up exploration of sex and violence in his production of Othello for Bristol’s Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory takes the audience on a gripping emotional journey, but one that is at times almost beyond close for comfort.This is theatre in the round with a vengeance: the low-ceilinged space, with the audience seated within feet of the... Read more... |
Ugly Lies the Bone, National TheatreFriday, 03 March 2017
Theatre increasingly uses digital delights to enhance audience enjoyment. And you can easily see why. Visual effects that mimic the experience of plunging into virtual reality inject a much-needed wow factor into otherwise quite mundane stories. And if there are plenty of British companies who use such effects, currently it’s American playwrights, such as Jennifer Haley, who are leading the way in the art of the eye-popping visual. Read more... |
Othello, Sam Wanamaker PlayhouseFriday, 03 March 2017
There's no reason why ruffs and candles shouldn't mesh with bursts of contemporary speech, song and lighting, given a defter hand than director Ellen McDougall's. Shakespeare's timeless issues of racism and sexism have plenty of mileage in them, though in less skewed proportions than they find here. Many of this production's components are promising, but the whole is a strident mess. Read more... |
Hamlet, Almeida TheatreWednesday, 01 March 2017
How often do you leave a production of Shakespeare's most layered drama in tears, thinking "what an astonishing play!" even more than "what a fine Hamlet!" (or not)? Last night the Bard proved even greater than his Dane. Not that Andrew Scott was ever less than mesmerising and unpredictable. But it was Robert Icke, a director you might expect to play fast and loose with text and structure, who in... Read more... |
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★★★★★
‘A compulsive, involving, emotionally stirring evening – theatre’s answer to a page-turner.’
The Observer, Kate Kellaway
Direct from a sold-out season at Kiln Theatre the five star, hit play, The Son, is now playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre for a strictly limited season.
★★★★★
‘This final part of Florian Zeller’s trilogy is the most powerful of all.’
The Times, Ann Treneman
Written by the internationally acclaimed Florian Zeller (The Father, The Mother), lauded by The Guardian as ‘the most exciting playwright of our time’, The Son is directed by the award-winning Michael Longhurst.
Book by 30 September and get tickets from £15*
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