Theatre Reviews
Saer Doliau, Finborough TheatreWednesday, 06 February 2013
Last weekend it was the 50th anniversary of an important event in postwar Welsh history. In early February 1963 the Welsh Language Society – Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg – protested for the first time about the right of Welsh speakers to live their lives in Welsh. Read more... |
The Captain of Köpenick, National TheatreWednesday, 06 February 2013
A little man takes on Authority and fails. A little man dons a colourful uniform, complete with boots and spiked helmet, and he becomes Authority. Carl Zuckmayer wrote Der Hauptmann von Köpenick in 1931, two years before Hitler came to power. Read more... |
Our Country’s Good, St James TheatreTuesday, 05 February 2013
Plays about plays are often touched by theatrical magic. This is certainly the case with Timberlake Wertenbaker’s masterpiece, first staged in 1988, and now revived by the same director, Max Stafford-Clark, who originally eased it into the world. And, just as a quarter of a century ago the play felt like a protest against the moronic anti-arts prejudices of the Thatcher gang, so today it once again asserts the power of theatre as against the crippled vision of Arts Council cuts. Read more... |
London Wall, Finborough TheatreSaturday, 02 February 2013
The walls of the staircase to the Finborough Theatre off the Earls Court Road are lined with framed awards. Downstairs for the umpteenth time, the café/restaurant has gone bust. But no other London fringe theatre has achieved such stellar success as this tiny pub theatre under the helm of its restless, irrepressible artistic director Neil McPherson, who has made a cottage industry out of discovering forgotten gems. Read more... |
Feast, Young VicSaturday, 02 February 2013
Feast aims high. Very, very high. Steered by experienced and much-lauded director Rufus Norris, five playwrights and one choreographer seek to make a fusion of physical theatre, dance, onstage music, straight drama, abstract poetic dialogue, projected animation and knockabout comedy to tell no less a story than 350 years of the history of the Yoruba people of west Africa. Read more... |
Old Times, Harold Pinter TheatreFriday, 01 February 2013
This production of Old Times is a big deal. It’s the first of Harold Pinter’s plays to be performed in the theatre renamed after him; it marks the reunion of director Ian Rickson and Kristin Scott Thomas, after their exhilarating Betrayal; and it feels like a seminal reading, involving a casting conceit that makes a rich work even richer, even more mesmerising. Read more... |
Anjin: The Shogun and the English Samurai, Sadler's WellsFriday, 01 February 2013
There is never a dull moment in this three-hour historical epic, even if it is not always clear what is going on. Directed by Gregory Doran, of the RSC, Anjin follows the 17th-century story of William Adams, the first Englishman to land in Japan. Read more... |
Quartermaine's Terms, Wyndham's TheatreWednesday, 30 January 2013
A wise man once said of Simon Gray's plays - and he wrote a lot of them - that they often have a lot of talk and very little action. And so it is with his 1981 tragi-comedy, set in the staff room of a language school for foreign students in Cambridge. Read more... |
Port, National TheatreTuesday, 29 January 2013
Over the past decade or so, Simon Stephens has emerged as one of Britain’s premier playwrights. As well as being a prolific penman, with three volumes of collected plays already in print, he has been tutor on the Royal Court’s Young Writers course and a regular at the National Theatre. He has also enjoyed collaborating with the best directors, one of whom is Marianne Elliott — their version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time transfers to the West End next month. Read more... |
Gruesome Playground Injuries, Gate TheatreTuesday, 29 January 2013
Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo put him in the running for a Pulitzer in 2010. Deservedly so. Set during the Iraq war and featuring a talking tiger (played with verve on Broadway by Robin Williams), it was inventive, funny and profound. Gruesome Playground Injuries is none of these. 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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