From the great, gasp-inducing rush of colour when the curtain opens on American Buffalo to the embrace that closes it, this revival of David Mamet’s career-making rummage through the junky…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:11PM“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” J Robert Oppenheimer’s quote from Hindu scripture is often used to signify the scientist’s rueful realisation of what he had created…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:00PMLast year the London stage was treated to an electrifying Medea and an intelligent, refreshing Electra, at The National and the Old Vic respectively. Now it’s the turn of the Barbican to u…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:00AMNow that the national self-delusion of the classless society has been laid to rest by the double whammy of economic crisis and the Cameron-Osborne-Johnson era of Bullingdon Club governance, …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:23PMAs revered as the Greek tragedies may be, I have to admit to feeling a little weary of all that conspicuous, over-ripe angst, and the expectation of our sympathy, even empathy for matricides…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:38PMRona Munro’s trilogy of plays about Scotland’s Stuart kings premiered at the Edinburgh Festival when Scottish independence was, for many, still a cherished possibility; it transfers to L…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:08PMTime doesn’t take any of the edge off Sam Shepard’s rollicking reflection on the dichotomy of America, the tussle between the myth and the dream, represented by two warring brothers trap…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:35PMThe latest production of Tennessee Williams’s sultry, brutal yet poetic masterpiece is mainstream theatre that dares to go out on a limb. Directed by Benedict Andrews, it may occasionally …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:17AMImagine Dr Watson trying his hand at Moriarty? That’s not the challenge of this Richard III, but the exciting prospect – to see an actor usually called upon to be the sidekick and nice g…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:00PMBrian Friel’s affinity with Russian writers, notably Chekhov and Turgenev, is central to his work, his seeing similarities between their tragi-comic characters, hanging onto “old certain…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:59AMJust before the curtain came up for the second half of Fatal Attraction, a chap sitting behind me told his companion, “All I remember is that it ends quite badly.” It may seem like a che…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:20AMRichard II arrives in London after a highly successful Stratford run, and while the glow of David Tennant’s Hamlet resides still in the memory. Surprisingly, the pleasure of the production…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:00AMWhether you’re partial to Highsmith or Hitchcock, or both, there’s something deliciously exciting about the prospect of Strangers on a Train. Much of that anticipation lies in the intrig…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:34AMWe know that David Mamet doesn’t beat about the bush; he tackles sensitive issues and the least attractive aspects of human nature head on, while his characters use language as weapons aga…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:00AMEvery May the townspeople of Monroeville, Alabama, the home of Harper Lee, perform Christopher Sergel’s theatrical adaptation of Lee’s acclaimed, much beloved novel, on the grounds of th…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:47AMNorth London has a splendid new theatre, The Park, whose £2.5 million existence – without a penny of government subsidy – is something of a miracle given our cash-strapped times. …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:00PMThroughout Harold Pinter’s The Hothouse, the characters of an ill-defined institution split hairs over the service it provides. Is it a rest home, a nursing home, a sanatorium? They may be…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:42PMThis production of Old Times is a big deal. It’s the first of Harold Pinter’s plays to be performed in the theatre renamed after him; it marks the reunion of director Ian Rickson and Kri…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:00AMWe never glimpse the source of the old money in Sarah’s Wooley’s new play, for it’s his funeral that opens proceedings. We will get no sense of the man, or the extent of his wealth, or…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:58AMHenry V is a play with so many layers, and such ambivalence, that it can suit a multitude of purposes. When Laurence Olivier made his film version in 1944, it was as a propagandist rallying …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:08PMThe Comedy of Errors may not be one of Shakespeare’s most notable plays, yet this production embodied the essence of the Globe to Globe season. While the play was lent new kinds of hilarit…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:27AMLife was altogether richer when Dennis Potter was around to provoke and worry us, to make us look queasily at the corrupt, hypocritical or despairing aspects of our lives, ever entertainingl…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:31AMLittle more than a year since The King’s Speech hit pay dirt at the Oscars, David Seidler’s tale of a prince stuttering between duty and impediment takes to the stage. Rather than a spee…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:48AM
