adaptation
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Playhouse TheatreTuesday, 13 January 2015
It’s true that there is something wildly, garishly, theatrical about Pedro Almodóvar’s films – none more so than this rampant farce – but it’s equally true that their sensibility is far removed from what the English might deem farce, and that their... Read more... |
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, National TheatreWednesday, 19 November 2014
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, David Hare's adaptation of Katherine Boo's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, works as both play and portent. Viewed on its own terms, the evening grips throughout in its embrace of the multiple contradictions of... Read more... |
Uncle Vanya, St James TheatreTuesday, 14 October 2014
Purists may take issue with Anya Reiss’s incursion into the classics. Having already tackled The Seagull and Three Sisters, she’s now turned her dogged 21st-century gaze on Uncle Vanya. But Reiss’s adaptation, though fresh and punchy, is... Read more... |
Lord of the Flies, Matthew Bourne's New Adventures, Sadler's WellsFriday, 10 October 2014
New Adventures, the name of Matthew Bourne's company, has a ruddy-cheeked, Boys’ Own ring to it that has – until now – been rather belied by his oeuvre, which includes a dance version of Edward Scissorhands, as well as dark retellings of all the... Read more... |
Life of CrimeThursday, 04 September 2014
The task of adapting 1978 novel The Switch by Elmore Leonard - who sadly passed away last year - is given to relatively new director Daniel Schechter who brings together a superb ensemble cast, lush seventies set design and a gritty style. He... Read more... |
Swan Lake, Dada Masilo, Sadler's WellsThursday, 19 June 2014
There are all sorts of companies and shows out there that claim to “rock” the ballet, or otherwise shake up, take down or reinvent an art form that, they imply, is (breathe it softly, the dirty word) elitist, or at least irrelevant. Few, I’d imagine... Read more... |
T.S. SpivetMonday, 09 June 2014
The French auteur Jean-Pierre Jeunet is best known and loved for his early work: Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children and (conveniently ignoring Alien: Resurrection) Amélie. These films introduced him as a director with a very particular, rather... Read more... |
In SecretMonday, 12 May 2014
As Literary Review's "Bad Sex in Fiction Award" recognises, there's not a lot that's funnier and more damaging to a story's credibility than an attempt to be sexy that falls flat or, even better, that misfires spectacularly. Some of the most famous... Read more... |
The Testament of Mary, BarbicanThursday, 08 May 2014
If you’re tempted to see Fiona Shaw’s impressive solo performance as Mary the mother of a son she can’t bring herself to name – and see it you probably should – then bear two things in mind.First, anything you may have heard or read about this being... Read more... |
A 21st-century Three SistersThursday, 17 April 2014
About a week after my modern adaptation of The Seagull closed in 2012 at Southwark Playhouse the director Russell Bolam texted me, "Same again?" So it’s now in 2014 that at (the new) Southwark Playhouse we’ve got our modern take on Chekhov’s Three... Read more... |
Half of a Yellow SunMonday, 07 April 2014
It’s the bad books, it has been famously said, that make the good films. As for the good ones, they have to take their chances. There is so much more to lose, so many nuances of tone and subtleties of texture to be sacrificed. Chimamanda Ngozi... Read more... |
I Found My Horn: Afterlife of a BookMonday, 17 March 2014
When a book is published, there are broadly speaking three alternative fates which lie in wait. It goes global, it sinks without trace, or it sells modestly and steadily to the readership for whom it was intended. There is, however, another... Read more... |
