Friday, May 30, 2014
New writing for British stages has recently delivered several punchy plays that, having made their points, don’t hang around for long afterwards. With a running time of 70 minutes, Rachel …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:01PMMonday, May 19, 2014
When I first heard that the new play from Out of Joint was about the NHS I thought this might be a delayed result of the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics: all those prancing nurses su…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PMFriday, April 25, 2014
A play about belief? I must admit I was immediately intrigued. After all, most of the people I know are either atheists or don’t usually talk about a world beyond our own. To use a hackney…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:00PMTuesday, April 22, 2014
How careless are we about the details of our private life? Well, unsurprisingly the answer is “very”. To make this point, playwright James Graham explores the subject not only by means o…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:00PMFriday, April 11, 2014
Almeida Theatre, London: Mike Bartlett makes his Almeida Theatre debut with this "future history play" set in the time when Prince Charles becomes king. As well as being based on a…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:38AMThursday, April 10, 2014
Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London: Simon Stephens loves German theatre: ever since his collaboration with Sebastian Nubling on plays such as Pornography and Three Kingdoms, he h…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:45AMWednesday, April 9, 2014
If rock is magic, then what about its creators? Are they wonderful magicians, or empty charlatans? Infused by the spirit of the Patti Smith song of the same name, playwright Simon Stephens�…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:00PMTuesday, April 8, 2014
Are the 2010s a rerun of the 1980s? You know that familiar feeling of déjà vu: economic collapse, royal wedding and Tories in power. Not to mention privatization and the spirit of rampant …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:00PMThursday, April 3, 2014
I must confess to feeling a warm tremble every time I hear “I Vow to Thee, My Country”, a result of the potent mix of Gustav Holst’s stately music and Cecily Spring Rice’s allusive w…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:00PMWednesday, March 26, 2014
How do you explore extremes of feeling on stage? In cult pen-master Philip Ridley’s new play, a 75-minute monologue that won plaudits in Edinburgh last year, he takes us by the hand and th…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:00PMWednesday, March 19, 2014
Political farces always start with a distinct disadvantage — the reality is so much sillier than the fictional version. Never mind, if anyone can make a stage comedy funny it is Ray Cooney…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:00PMTuesday, March 11, 2014
Gate Theatre, London: In its 35th anniversary year, and for its Beginnings Season, this venue is staging the British premiere of Spanish playwright Rodrigo Garcia's monologue, in which …
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:39AMWednesday, March 5, 2014
This venue continues its promotion of American drama with another prize-winning play from across the pond. Hot on the heels of Gina Gionfriddo’s Rapture, Blister, Burn, with its casting of…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:31AMThursday, February 27, 2014
Few anniversaries have got off to such a strong start in our current culture as that of the outbreak of the First World War. This new play by Peter Gill, which opened last night, is original…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMSoho Theatre, London: The winner of last year's prestigious Verity Bargate award for best new play, The One is an explicit, sometimes excruciating, often hilarious debut play about an e…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:41AMTuesday, February 18, 2014
Another week, another postwar classic. Hot on the heels of last week’s revival of Oh What a Lovely War comes another legendary play from the Joan Littlewood museum of great one-offs. This …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMTuesday, February 11, 2014
The trend of celebrating anniversaries by digging out old classics might suggest that no good new plays are being written, but at least it gives us the chance to re-assess their worth. Theat…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMThursday, February 6, 2014
Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Royal Court, London: Writer Abi Morgan makes her Royal Court debut with this adaptation of The Mistress Contract, a short memoir, published last year, of a sexual…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:12AMWednesday, February 5, 2014
What exactly is unconventional about an unconventional couple? In Abi Morgan’s new two-hander, an adaptation of last year’s book of the same name by She and He (a West Coast American cou…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMThursday, January 23, 2014
Feminism suddenly seems to be all the rage in London theatre. Yesterday, I reviewed Nick Payne’s Blurred Lines, and tonight I saw this show by American provocateur Gina Gionfriddo, whose B…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:02PMWednesday, January 22, 2014
You can’t accuse Nick Payne of being fainthearted. His new play explores what it means to be a woman and it features a wonderful all-woman cast. But wait a minute: isn’t he a man? And wh…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:02PMTuesday, January 21, 2014
Gate Theatre, London: The third show in this venue's These American Lives season, this multi-award-winning play by New York playwright Dan O'Brien features two actors playing more …
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:55AMFriday, January 17, 2014
Unlike television, with its series of Spooks and Homeland, theatre has more or less ignored the secret services. For reasons of snobbery (thrillers are somehow beneath the interest of young …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:03AMFriday, January 10, 2014
There are few things as depressing as whinge drama. But the Anglo-Irish have a reasonable claim to be considered the Republic of Ireland’s forgotten losers. The term means the wealthy Prot…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMMonday, December 9, 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 peop…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMFriday, December 6, 2013
Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Royal Court, London: In its tradition of alternative Christmas shows, the Royal Court is hosting an adaptation of Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindqvist's nove…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:44AMThursday, December 5, 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 sw…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMFriday, November 29, 2013
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London: Vicky Featherstone's new regime at the Royal Court not only upholds this venue's traditions as a playwright's theatre, but also …
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:05AMThursday, November 28, 2013
You can see why sport makes for good drama: it has competition, conflict and clashes of egos. It delivers a result, and it has a touch of glory. At its best, it can send you out of the theat…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMThursday, November 21, 2013
Is there a danger that a show can be oversold? Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room sounds innocuous enough — until you read its subtitle: The Vibrator Play. Marketed as the most provocative dr…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMWednesday, November 6, 2013
The Shed, National Theatre, London: Debbie Tucker Green makes her National Theatre debut in the venue's successful temporary space, which is dedicated to adventurous and experimental wo…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:18AM 
