Sunday, February 12, 2023
Hotshot auteur Simon Stone creates a dazzling new myth for our times
How can old texts speak to us now? The point is not just to adapt classics, but to reimagine them – and that’s exact…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:10PMWednesday, February 8, 2023
New play about a gender-pioneering couple is provocative and engaging
With the total loss of its Arts Council funding, Hampstead Theatre’s future as a specialist new writing venue is in d…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:01AMWednesday, February 1, 2023
West End transfer for Sam Steiner’s fringe classic does the play no favours
Culture which arrives from the margins to the mainstream is a classic phenomenon. In the case of Sam Steiner’s…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:05PMTuesday, January 31, 2023
Sonali Bhattacharyya’s coming of age drama returns with a new cast
Do the right thing! But doing the right thing isn’t easy – especially if you are a teen. And a female teen who is bei…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:03PMMonday, January 30, 2023
New play about the queer club scene is a fabulous extravaganza
Ever been to a queer club? You know, drag cabaret night at Madame Jojo’s, or the Black Cap or Her Upstairs. No? Well, not to …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01AMTuesday, December 13, 2022
Stephen Karam’s 2011 award-winning play is a subtle exploration of suffering
Pain is, at one and the same time, something to avoid, and also something you can use. Kahlil Gibran, the Leban…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:02PMSunday, December 11, 2022
April De Angelis’s latest has Fay Ripley, but precious little else
Is British new writing in deep trouble? With the Arts Council defunding venues such as the Hampstead Theatre, the Donmar …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:12PMSunday, November 27, 2022
New play about an Iraqi exile and his daughter is strong if a bit messy
What is the best way of talking about the Middle East? Should plays take a documentary or verbatim approach, all the b…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:54PMThursday, November 17, 2022
Terry Johnson returns with a sex comedy that is neither sexy nor funny
In the past, playwright Terry Johnson has mixed sex and comedy with hilarious results. His Freudian farce, Hysteria, a…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:36PMSunday, November 13, 2022
New play about a junior doctor on the edge is powerful and moving
Every day there is bad news about the NHS — junior doctors are exhausted, nurses need foodbanks and the stats are hitting…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:32PMTuesday, November 1, 2022
New play about the Queen of Scots is a bit wordy, but well worth it
Scottish playwright Rona Munro is both prolific and ambitious. After her trilogy of historical dramas, The James Plays, w…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:36PMSaturday, October 29, 2022
The playwright talks about his latest play, Not One of These People, which he is performing himself, and about digital creativity and constraints on authorship
The fictional world is our wo…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:55AMSunday, October 23, 2022
New West End theatre opens with a bio-drama that is joyful silly - but a bit relentless
Opening a theatre should be a celebration, says Nica Burns, the West End power behind this new theatre…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:19PMFriday, October 7, 2022
New play about therapy is powerfully emotional, but sadly predictable
Therapy is inherently dramatic. After all, it’s all about character — and it has the aim of producing a recognizable…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:03PMWednesday, September 28, 2022
After its antisemitic blunder a year ago, this venue makes amends
What is the Royal Court theatre for? Is it a space that stages innovative new writing, or does it prefer to do documentary t…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:37PMFriday, September 16, 2022
Two-hander about a contrasting pair of gay Pakistanis is beautifully wrought
Britain is a divided nation, but one of the divisions that we don’t hear that much about is that between Pakist…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:07PMWednesday, September 7, 2022
Dramatization of Kavita Puri’s Partition Voices is moving and compelling
Partition equals trauma. It cannot have escaped anyone’s attention that the British Empire’s solution to intrac…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:37PMWednesday, August 17, 2022
A jury of young people hold their elders to account for climate change
Dystopian theatre takes many forms — but this is the first which is a jury-room drama. Dawn King has previously expl…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:03PMTuesday, August 9, 2022
Francesca Martinez’s debut play about disability politics entertains – and frustrates
Has the pandemic made us more angry? Although Francesca Martinez’s debut play, which is at the Nat…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:07PMTuesday, July 26, 2022
New award-winning political play is warmly idealistic, if a bit too obvious
While Britain is experiencing a "summer of discontent", with inflation, strikes and other conflicts, it is odd th…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:24PMTuesday, June 28, 2022
Roy Williams’s latest is a tribute to the children of the Windrush generation
I live in Brixton, south London. A few days ago, the borough’s aptly named Windrush Square hosted events whi…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:03PMTuesday, June 21, 2022
Loving account of two couples is perceptive, but a bit slender
Is gig theatre the latest sugar rush? Okay, it ups the brain’s serotonin levels and charges around your body like a crazy el…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:18PMSunday, June 19, 2022
Lucy Kirkwood’s new play is depressingly cynical in form and content
What is the shelf life of a theatre gimmick? In April, the Royal Court announced that they were going to stage a debut …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:18PMSunday, May 22, 2022
Tamasha play about a Punjabi family-run salon could do with a makeover
Theatre is slowly recovering from the effects of the pandemic — and many shows which were cancelled because of the f…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:48PMThursday, May 5, 2022
David Eldridge’s follow up to his 2017 hit, ‘Beginning’, is disappointing
The traditional, and much derided, well-made play is meant to have a beginning, middle and end. Although playw…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:12AMSunday, April 24, 2022
Dominic Cooke’s imaginative revival improves on Emlyn Williams’s 1938 play
Let’s talk repertoire. Over the past decade the range of British plays, especially those from the 17th, 18th…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:06PMTuesday, March 22, 2022
Ruth Wilson is brilliant in Jean Cocteau classic adapted by Ivo van Hove
Is there really such a thing as an unmissable show? Depends on your taste of course, but for sheer hype this event ta…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:18PMTuesday, March 15, 2022
High-energy revival of Mike Bartlett’s 2009 play boasts a dynamic cast
Mike Bartlett’s Cock invites suggestive comments, but the main thing about the play is that it has proved to be a …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:12PMSunday, March 13, 2022
Intriguing new play from Ron Hutchinson capsizes in performance
You can’t keep a great playwright down. Ron Hutchinson, whose award winning stage plays, such as Rat in the Skull (1984) an…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:42PMTuesday, March 8, 2022
Great staging enlivens this well-written monologue about a cross-generational relationship
Love is the most difficult four-letter word. And platonic love is perhaps the hardest kind of emot…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:48PMTuesday, March 1, 2022
Debut play about football and gentrification is pitch perfect
Football stories are never just about a game — they are also about life and how to live it. In Tyrell Williams’s Red Pitch,…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:12PM 
