playwrights
Really Old, Like Forty Five, National TheatreWednesday, 03 February 2010
Okay, now that you’re a citizen of Dystopia, and you’ve reached the regulation old age, it’s time to check into an approved care home. Please enter the Ark, and take your allotted bed. A government official will be with you in due course. Yes, that’... Read more... |
The Whisky Taster, Bush TheatreWednesday, 27 January 2010
Synaesthesia is a tricky beast. It’s basically a neurological condition which condemns those afflicted with it to a life in which words evoke colours, and emotions can be experienced as colour. Sometimes it is almost playful, with the mere names of... Read more... |
A Jubilee for Anton Chekhov, Hampstead TheatreThursday, 14 January 2010
The Russians have always been good at writers' houses. The Soviets especially. When I first saw Tolstoy's house his blue smock was hanging behind the door, a manuscript was on his desk but the chair pushed back as if he'd nipped out for a moment and... Read more... |
Extract: Are You There, Crocodile?Thursday, 14 January 2010
In a life so short it is always a shock to remember the fact. Chekhov lost more friends than most people do by 60, but he has gained hundreds of thousands who love that fugitive figure, its guardedly attentive attitude, the merciless word in the... Read more... |
The Misanthrope, Comedy TheatreThursday, 17 December 2009
She’s the most famous young pout in Hollywood. And her first West End appearance has already sparked a media frenzy, making this contemporary version of Molière’s The Misanthrope the hottest ticket in town, with massive advance bookings already... Read more... |
Detaining Justice, Tricycle TheatreTuesday, 01 December 2009
The plight of asylum-seekers is no laughing matter, but that doesn’t mean that dramas about the subject have to be worthy, or dull. In fact, young playwright Bola Agbaje’s Detaining Justice, which opened last night, is an exemplary mix of laughter... Read more... |
The Priory, Royal Court TheatreThursday, 26 November 2009
If it’s not quite the time of year to start making New Year resolutions, then it’s not far off. Everywhere, you can read the signs: bright lights on the main shopping streets, merry cash registers ringing and the sound of yule logs being felled in... Read more... |
The Habit of Art, National TheatreWednesday, 18 November 2009
It sounded a dry subject and a dry title for Alan Bennett’s first play for five years - a fictional meeting between composer Benjamin Britten and poet W H Auden 25 years after they fell out, two old buggers, one furtive, the other extrovert. But at... Read more... |
The Making of Moo, Orange Tree TheatreTuesday, 17 November 2009
Reviving rarely performed plays is a high-risk strategy. On the one hand, there’s the chance of discovering a forgotten gem; on the other, there may be good reasons for the play being rarely performed. Nigel Dennis’s The Making of Moo was first... Read more... |
Shraddha, Soho TheatreWednesday, 04 November 2009
Oh dear, poor Pearl is in a bit of pickle. She's 17, and her mum wants to know what she's doing talkin' to Joe, a young lad from the local estate. After all, Pearl is meant to be engaged to Clive, her childhood sweetheart. And he'd come running if... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Playwright David HareSaturday, 10 October 2009
David Hare (b. 1947) has had three distinct phases to his career as a playwright. In the 1970s he was a satirist of the agitprop movement whose plays (Slag, Knuckle) smacked of youthful belligerence. From Plenty (1978) onwards, he devoted two... Read more... |
Orphans, Soho TheatreFriday, 02 October 2009Theatre is the art of storytelling, and the best stories are those that constantly change their shape. In Dennis Kelly's storming new play, Orphans, which wowed critics and audiences when it opened in Edinburgh in August, the narrative morphs and... Read more... |
