new writing
Choir Boy, Royal Court TheatreTuesday, 11 September 2012
With the American presidential election campaign now in full swing, the search is surely on for cultural expressions of the two nations that the candidates represent: white rich people versus the rest. Okay, maybe an exaggeration, but who says I’m... Read more... |
The Witness, Royal Court TheatreTuesday, 12 June 2012
A powerful trend in contemporary theatre is the family play. But the families usually depicted tend to be of the standard two-point-five variety, while other more complex forms — families as they actually are — tend to be ignored. So initially the... Read more... |
Love, Love, Love, Royal Court TheatreFriday, 04 May 2012
The best playwrights have an antenna-like ability to pick up, and respond to, the new conflicts and fault lines that appear in society. Over the past five or so years, the antagonism between the baby-boomer generation, who are now parents with... Read more... |
Chalet Lines, Bush TheatreFriday, 13 April 2012
When Madani Younis became the new artistic director of the Bush, some questioned his commitment to new writing, while others asked what he would bring to this small but high-profile venue. With this, his inaugural production, which opened last night... Read more... |
Goodbye to All That, Royal Court TheatreTuesday, 28 February 2012
The Royal Court has been finding and developing young writers for four decades. Its Young Writers Festival has helped launch the careers of a variety of talents such as Simon Stephens (winner of the 2005 Olivier for Best Newcomer), Christopher Shinn... Read more... |
In Basildon, Royal Court TheatreThursday, 23 February 2012
Is there a more evocative location than Essex? In his 2000 play Under the Blue Sky, one of David Eldridge’s characters shouts the unforgettable words: “I’m from Essex and I’m dancing!” Now back at this venue for the first time since that play,... Read more... |
Mathematics of the Heart, Theatre 503Friday, 10 February 2012
Science rocks. In the theatre, this is a subject that offers to provide powerful experiments in metaphor. Most recently, in Nick Payne’s Constellations - and most classically in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen and Charlotte Jones’... Read more... |
Haunted Child, Royal Court TheatreFriday, 09 December 2011
Can you replace a wife with a doctrine? Under normal circumstances, the question would be absurd, but given that Joe Penhall’s new play, which opened last night, is the latest of a crop that have explored belief, spirituality and religion, the... Read more... |
Next Time I’ll Sing to You, Orange Tree TheatreSaturday, 12 November 2011
Some plays are so weird they defy description. Well, almost. One of these must surely be the late James Saunders’s deeply absurdist play, whose first outing in 1963 launched the career of the young Michael Caine. Soon after, its author won a... Read more... |
13, National TheatreTuesday, 25 October 2011
Spooky coincidences make good drama. Mike Bartlett’s epic follow-up to his highly successful 2010 play Earthquakes in London begins with a mind-bogglingly weird situation: every morning in the metropolis, dozens of people wake up and they’... Read more... |
Jumpy, Royal Court TheatreThursday, 20 October 2011
“Why does anyone ever have kids?” By the time a character in April De Angelis’s new comedy utters this exasperated exclamation, there are many in the audience - whether parents or children, or both - who must have had the same thought. And more than... Read more... |
Bang Bang Bang, Royal Court TheatreSunday, 16 October 2011
“Go home. This is not your business. This is not your war.” So a Congolese warlord tells Sadhbh, an Irish human-rights defender, in Stella Feehily’s new drama for Out of Joint. Has the arrogance and exploitation of colonialism been replaced by the... Read more... |
