Theatre Reviews
Dead Funny, Vaudeville TheatreFriday, 04 November 2016
Terry Johnson's Dead Funny debuted at the same theatre in the West End in 1994 (after opening at Hampstead), and its starting point is the real events of April 1992 when two funnymen, Frankie Howerd and Benny Hill, died in the same week. It was a bizarre coincidence from which he fashioned a very funny play – which he now expertly directs in this welcome revival – about the Dead Funny Society, a collection of suburban oddballs who meet to celebrate their comedy heroes. Read more... |
The Last Five Years, St James TheatreFriday, 04 November 2016
From Monteverdi to Schubert to Bernstein and Lloyd Webber the dramatic song cycle has travelled far and wide over the centuries, though not until Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years in opposite directions. Read more... |
Fool for Love, Found111Wednesday, 02 November 2016
Who is the fool in Sam Shepard’s 1983 chamber play Fool for Love? Is it Eddie, the rodeo stuntman who repeatedly cheats on his girl? Is it May, the girl who keeps taking him back? Or is it the Old Man, whose philosophy of rolling-stone fatherhood fails to take account of the damaged lives? Read more... |
Side Show, Southwark PlayhouseTuesday, 01 November 2016
Composer Henry Krieger’s highly anticipated Dreamgirls arrives later this month, but first up is the UK premiere of his less well-known but thoroughly likeable Side Show, based on the real story of a pair of conjoined twins who became 1930s American vaudeville stars. Read more... |
The Nest, Young VicTuesday, 01 November 2016
Do we see enough in the UK of continental European drama in translation? No. Is what we actually get the best? Probably not in the case of popular German playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz's The Nest. Still, it's rendered into pithy, convincing vernacular by no less a writer than Conor McPherson, well enough directed by Ian Rickson and plausibly characterised by two fine Irish actors. Read more... |
The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, Hampstead TheatreFriday, 28 October 2016
So many words, starting with the title - we're told we can call it iHo - and so many lines spoken by anything up to nine characters at once. But as this is the unique world of Tony Kushner, it's all matter from the heart, balancing big ideas and complex characters and leading them beyond the realms of any safe and simply effective new play, in this case towards a father-and-daughter scene as great as anything you'll see in the theatre today. Read more... |
Amadeus, National TheatreFriday, 28 October 2016
Populist playwright Peter Shaffer, who died in June, gets a rapid honour from this flagship venue, which – aptly enough – is putting on his most popular play. So popular in fact that it has already sold out and is therefore critic-proof. Directed by one of our best youngish directors, Michael Longhurst, and with live music by the Southbank Sinfonia, this spectacular show is certainly a hugely entertaining evening. Read more... |
Harrogate, Royal Court TheatreTuesday, 25 October 2016
What’s incest got to do with a town in North Yorkshire? At first this seems a reasonable question to ask of Al Smith’s brilliantly written, if a little bit tricksy, play, which begins somewhere nearer to Guilford than to Leeds. The central character is Patrick, the father of an under-aged teen daughter, and husband of a hardworking doctor. The daughter has a best friend called Carly, and an older boyfriend called Adam. Read more... |
A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer, National TheatreFriday, 21 October 2016
Some have responded to the very notion of a musical about cancer as if the idea itself were breaking some unwritten code of what is permissible to put on stage Read more... |
Blue Heart, Orange Tree TheatreWednesday, 19 October 2016
Q: How do you review a show that includes lines that ask “can my mouth swallow my mouth”? A: With difficulty, but I should be okay as long as I resist the temptation of being as surreal as Caryl Churchill is in this double bill of two short, but related one-act plays that were first staged in 1997. 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*
with no booking fee.
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