Theatre Reviews
Drawing the Line, Hampstead TheatreTuesday, 10 December 2013
The Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 is one of those epoch-making events that are so huge as to be almost beyond our comprehension. It affected the lives of literally millions of people. And has a resonance today. To understand this cataclysmic event, you feel, will require six hours of documentary, a two-month mini-series or a novel of at least 600 pages. Yet here is Howard Brenton’s new play, which opened last night, and it tells the story in one quick evening. Read more... |
From Morning to Midnight, National TheatreMonday, 09 December 2013
We first see the bank clerk, who can’t bear his dull life, serving behind the cashier's till, like an automaton. In Melly Still's hugely inventive, visually stunning multimedia production of From Morning to Midnight – Georg Kaiser's fearlessly weird German Expressionist drama from 1912 – Adam Godley's Clerk starts out as a desiccated nonentity, nose to the grindstone. Read more... |
Let the Right One In, Royal Court TheatreFriday, 06 December 2013
Vampire romance is a genre which has a mysterious tendency. Every time it migrates from one art form (say novel) to another (say film) it loses some of its darkness and acquires a strange sweetness. So it was with Let the Right One In, a 2004 novel by Swedish penman John Ajvide Lindqvist, which was made into a slightly less dark tale in its first Swedish film version (2008) and then into an even sweeter American film adaptation as Let Me In (2010). Read more... |
Emil and the Detectives, National TheatreThursday, 05 December 2013
Read Erich Kästner’s 1928 novel about young Emil Tischbein and the Berlin boys he enlists to catch a thief, and you’ll come away feeling warm if slightly incredulous at the strong moral compass of all the kids and most of the adults. Gerhard Lamprecht’s early (1931) “talkie”, with a screenplay by Billy Wilder, has darker undertones, much admired by the obsessive 19-year-old Benjamin Britten. Read more... |
Henry V, Noel Coward TheatreWednesday, 04 December 2013
It has been a hard slog, but he's emerging victorious in the end. Essentially, Shakespeare's Henry V tracks a military campaign. In Act One, the eponymous king declares war on France. Read more... |
Candide, Menier Chocolate FactoryTuesday, 03 December 2013
How do you solve a problem like...no, not Maria, Candide? Musicals are loved for their scores – and Leonard Bernstein’s one for this really is a cracker – but they’re held together by their books, i.e. the script/dramatic context that makes audiences care about the characters and plot. Read more... |
Seussical the Musical, Arts TheatreMonday, 02 December 2013
With the current nostalgia for all things Dr Seuss, now is surely a good time to treat your little ones to the zany nonsense-rhyme stories as they are bought to life on stage. Kirk Jameson’s production has arrived, courtesy of Sell a Door Theatre Company, at the small West End venue of the Arts Theatre, a quaint, quirky place befitting of a uniquely looney show. Read more... |
Gastronauts, Royal Court Theatre UpstairsSaturday, 30 November 2013
For increasing numbers of people, food is theatre, so what better time to combine the two into the slight, sweet, determinedly socially conscious evening that is Gastronauts? The Royal Court "happening" of sorts is catering to audiences of 60 per show during its sellout run. A devised piece that turns playgoers into diners while also asking them to question the ethics and ethos of food, the show in its questioning impulse seems the perfect antidote to festive-season excess... Read more... |
Jumpers for Goalposts, Bush TheatreFriday, 29 November 2013
You can see why sport makes for good drama: it has competition, conflict and clashes of ego. It delivers a result, and it has a touch of glory. At its best, it can send you out of the theatre singing with joy. Or it can be a bit bathetic. Tom Wells, whose award-winning The Kitchen Sink was at this venue in 2011, returns with another small slice of life, this time about amateur Sunday footballers in Hull. Read more... |
The Culture Show: Vicky Featherstone - All Change at the Royal Court, BBC TwoThursday, 28 November 2013
I guess the BBC can't afford researchers or fact-checkers these days. If they could, perhaps something of substance might have arisen from their vacuous Culture Show profile of Vicky Featherstone, the gifted new artistic director of the Royal Court. Oh, and they have might have got the theatre's actual postcode right (SW1W 8AS, as per the Court website), rather than insisting twice on air that it's in (neighbouring) SW3. 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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