Friday, April 19, 2024
New play-with-songs version of Dickens’s 'Our Mutual Friend' is a panoramic Victori-noir
“He do the police in different voices.” If ever one phrase summed up a work of fiction, and th…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 01:02PMMonday, April 15, 2024
Latest from American penman Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is less than the sum of its parts
I’ve never been one for school reunions, but even if I had kept in touch with former classmates I thin…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:42AMTuesday, February 27, 2024
New comedy about masculinity and music is predictable and clumsy
One island off the coast of Spain has more cultural oomph than all the rest put together. I’m talking about Ibiza, the sun…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:36PMMonday, February 26, 2024
New play about love and memory is exquisitely written and beautifully acted
For the past ten years, Black-British playwrights have been in the vanguard of innovation in the form and content …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:36PMWednesday, February 7, 2024
Lemn Sissay’s adaptation of the Franz Kafka classic is just too wordy
Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” is a novella whose cultural resonance has echoed loudly down the years. As a mode…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:36PMFriday, February 2, 2024
New play about three sisters is full of energy, but also a bit too populist for me
The National Theatre is meant to represent the whole nation — and not just the metropolitan middle classe…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:42PMFriday, January 19, 2024
London transfer for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s riotous comedy Western
At its best theatre is a seducer. It weaves a magic spell that can persuade you, perhaps against your better jud…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:54PMTuesday, January 16, 2024
Forgotten play by the author of Tom & Viv is realistic, but lacks dramatic focus
British Theatre abounds in forgotten writers. And in ones whose early work is too rarely revived. One su…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:48PMSunday, December 17, 2023
Nina Raine’s revival of Tom Stoppard’s 2006 epic rocks, but also stumbles
There is a song by Syd Barrett, founder member of Pink Floyd, called “Golden Hair”. It’s on his album The …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:18PMSunday, December 10, 2023
Chris Thorpe’s one-man show about nuclear weapons is intelligent and humane
Let’s start with what we know: the climate emergency is the single most burning question facing the planet. Ou…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:18PMFriday, December 1, 2023
Seasonal Eng Lit mash-up returns with its festive message of forgiveness
It’s an elementary fact that Dickens sells at this time of year — look at all the perennial Christmas Carols spro…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:18PMThursday, November 16, 2023
Samuel Barnett performs a sizzling monologue about sex and fatal attraction
The Comedian runs, bounces even, onto the stage. The audience immediately applauds. He seizes the mic and makes se…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 01:24PMFriday, November 10, 2023
New comedy about toffs and tycoons is disappointingly juvenile and weak
As Christmas looms, ’tis the season for comedy. And even the traditionally austere Royal Court feels obliged to join…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:12PMTuesday, November 7, 2023
Richard Bean’s new comedy about old age occasionally glows, but stays lukewarm
There’s only a couple of things you need to know about playwright Richard Bean: he started out as a stand-…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 01:32PMFriday, November 3, 2023
Princess Diana’s BBC soul-searching makes for a slender docu-drama
Journalism is a despised profession. And when you consider the story behind the interview that Diana, Princess of Wales,…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:42PMFriday, October 27, 2023
New adaptation of Eliza Clark’s highly praised novel lacks a genuine heart of darkness
We’ve all heard of the male gaze, but what about its subversion? Overturning masculine dominance i…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:37AMThursday, October 12, 2023
Energetic new play about South Asian Muslim men challenges stereotypes
Multiculturalism, according to the Home Secretary, has failed, so where does that leave British Black and Asian commun…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:07PMMonday, October 9, 2023
Triumphant climax to Roy Williams and Clint Dyer’s brilliant tetralogy about race
It’s closing time somewhere in the East End. Nah, not the pub, but at a small local shop. Inside, Denise…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 09:07PMMonday, September 25, 2023
New play about the relations between humans and other life forms has profound depths
How many hearts does an octopus have? Answer: three. This pub quiz clincher is just one of the many fasci…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:55PMFriday, September 22, 2023
Revival of Alan Brody’s award-winning 2013 history play is solid but plodding
Must science always be dominated by politics? This question is most urgent when the stakes are high — climat…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:19PMFriday, September 15, 2023
Revival of Polly Stenham’s 2007 punk extravaganza stars Niamh Cusack
Playwright Polly Stenham MBE had a meteoric rise with this play, her award-winning 2007 debut which she wrote aged 19 …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:49AMFriday, August 25, 2023
Jonny Lee Miller stars in a problematically dystopian story of creativity and censorship
This is a play about censorship in a totalitarian state — but, no, I’m not reviewing The Pillowm…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:55AMFriday, July 14, 2023
New comedy explores digital and family alienation, but finds nothing to say
Historically, the Royal Court is the venue for cutting-edge new writing – you know, the kind of plays that have…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:25PMThursday, July 6, 2023
British premiere by this venue’s supremo is thrillingly provocative but also flawed
Trauma is the source of identity politics. In the case of African-Americans, the experience of brutal sl…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:25PMTuesday, July 4, 2023
Jack Thorne’s play about the BBC informs and educates, but does not really entertain
Can things change, or must they always stay the same? The latest history play by Jack Thorne, a man of…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:25PMSunday, July 2, 2023
New play about a lesbian love triangle is emotionally true and profoundly theatrical
There are some songs, and singers, that make your heart swell. One of them, for me, is Ani DiFranco’s …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:13PMThursday, June 22, 2023
West End revival of Martin McDonagh’s storytelling classic is fun but unconvincing
British theatre is getting a bit timid — is that right? Ahead of the opening of this revival of Martin …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:55PMSunday, June 11, 2023
New writing season kicks off with two imaginative adventures in theatre
The summer season at the Royal Court, London’s premiere new writing venue, features two plays which imaginatively e…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:49PMWednesday, April 26, 2023
Trauma play about domestic abuse raises questions about the role of theatre
Men are bastards. Okay, not all of us, but enough to make the lives of millions of women a misery. This we know, …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:36PMThursday, April 6, 2023
New play about family trauma and loss is an experiment in poetic drama
Is it possible to successfully challenge naturalism in British theatre today? At a time when audiences crave feelgood d…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:18PMIvo van Hove’s stage version of Hanya Yanagihara’s bestseller is a real misery fest
Wow! James Norton naked! Wow! New play by Ivo van Hove. Wow! It’s four hours long. Wow! Wow! Wow! Th…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 01:03AM 
