Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Stef Smith brings exhilarating spirit to a familiar classic
Ibsen's Nora slammed the door on her infantilising marriage in 1879 but the sound of it has continued to reverberate down the year…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:12PM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Rebecca Frecknall directs a production which ultimately finds its heart
This play can be a challenge for modern audiences: a woman who is ostensibly in a position of power, "a prince" in Ren…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:33AM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 4, 2019
A vigorous Paterson Joseph meets the Christmas spirits
"Dickensian" commonly means both sentimental Victorian, apple-cheeked family perfection (especially at Christmas) and abject poverty. …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:48PM[SHARE]Friday, November 29, 2019
Welsh parable of the second coming makes unusual seasonal fare
This is the third Emlyn Williams piece to be presented here in a decade: The Druid's Rest in 2009 was followed by the enormous …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:18PM[SHARE]Friday, November 8, 2019
Gender changes provide a new perspective on the balance of power
This is one play by Shakespeare ripe for tinkering. It's well nigh impossible now to take it at face value and still find rom…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:48AM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Communicator par excellence on a journey from Gandalf to Macbeth via panto, Coronation Street and gender politics
Reviewing Ian McKellen's show is, in one sense, like appraising the Taj Maha…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:03PM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 25, 2019
The Spanish classic with an Irish accent
Earthiness, lyricism, fatalism, the undeniable force of passion, of ecstatic attraction, known as "duende": these are the familiar ingredients of Lor…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:18PM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Tanika Gupta's layered version launches a new era
Newly arrived from a much-lauded stint at the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, Rachel O'Riordan has undertaken to make "work of scale by women" du…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:54PM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Samantha Womack lurches valiantly through this scarcely credible crime drama
It may help if you love the book. It was a runaway bestseller, so fans must be legion, but a suspenseful story wh…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:18PM[SHARE]Saturday, July 13, 2019
As The Night of the Iguana opens, the actor renowned for playing dual roles talks Tennessee Williams, Pinter - and Wallis Simpson
Lia Williams is not an actor who looks for easy options. Twi…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:24PM[SHARE]Thursday, May 16, 2019
Doubling, humour and an outstanding female Henry V
Henry IV Part One (***)
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:48AM[SHARE]Thursday, May 9, 2019
Arthur Miller's tragedy from an African-American viewpoint
The Young Vic, a welcoming theatre with a culturally diverse audience, has been home to memorable Miller revivals before, notably I…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:42PM[SHARE]Friday, April 26, 2019
The Shadowlands playwright talks about C S Lewis, love, pain and being a writer
It is 30 years since Shadowlands, William Nicholson's much-loved play about C S Lewis's unexpected love affair…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:59PM[SHARE]Monday, March 25, 2019
Two-hander provides multifarious acting opportunities but insufficient focus
Obstetrician Dr Mary Barton had the best of intentions. As a missionary in India she had observed the poor treatm…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:45PM[SHARE]Thursday, February 21, 2019
★★ TARTUFFE, NATIONAL THEATRE Morality-heavy version of the comedy classic
Brexit provides an unwelcome motor for John Donnelly's Molière-with-a-twist
Here's a recipe for a succ…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:41PM[SHARE]Sunday, February 17, 2019
A rediscovered early work by one of the giants of Twentieth Century theatre focuses on a woman's struggle for independenceRemembering meeting Harley Granville Barker when casting him as…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:42PM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Jacobean and contemporary justice collide in audience-involving dramaForget the cloak in the puddle. Never mind potatoes and tobacco. The children's book cliché of Sir Walter Raleigh (or Ra…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:36PM[SHARE]Monday, November 12, 2018
The director talks about Macbeth in the candle-lit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, cross-gender casting and the director's roleRobert Hastie is a little late for our meeting. Directing Shakesp…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:24AM[SHARE]Thursday, November 8, 2018
RSC transfer presents a crowd-pleasing mix of metatheatrical comedy and music with, ultimately, a touch of melancholy Don Quixote and his paunchy sidekick long ago escaped the pages of Migue…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:36PM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Horror flick echoes fail to meet all the play's challengesIt has been said before: Macbeth's reputation for bad luck has more to do with the difficulty of bringing off a successful prod…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:06PM[SHARE]Friday, September 28, 2018
An ambitious celebratory series kicks off in fine fashionTen years after Pinter's death, Jamie Lloyd has set about honouring the Twentieth Century's outstanding British playwright in an ambi…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:04AM[SHARE]Friday, September 7, 2018
Didactic theatre piece stronger on facts than dramaThe title of Tony Harrison's teacherly entertainment - it can't be called a play - refers to the square bullets invented by James Puckle to…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:06PM[SHARE]Friday, August 3, 2018
Oscar Wilde's best-loved comedy with extra homo-erotic innuendoAny actor playing Lady Bracknell must dread the moment when she (or, indeed, he) has to deliver that unforgettable line ab…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:32AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 26, 2018
Ian McKellen gives a towering performance as Shakespeare's capricious monarch Jonathan Munby's production, first seen last year in Chichester, reflects our everyday anxieties, emphasisi…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:36PM[SHARE]Thursday, July 12, 2018
Earnest environmental messages underpin a celebratory, musically gleeful revival of Shakespeare's cross-dressing favouriteIt's been raining in Regent's Park. On a balmy summer evening d…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:42PM[SHARE]Friday, May 25, 2018
The boy who never grows up flies into the First World War This exuberant production both clarifies and further complicates the conundrum of Peter Pan. In any production true to Barrie there …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:32PM[SHARE]Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Wycherley's sexy comedy transplanted to the Roaring TwentiesEven in its successful early days Wycherley's 1675 comedy was notorious, but it was considered too lewd to be staged at all betwee…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:30PM[SHARE]Sunday, March 11, 2018
Emma Rice's lauded stage version of the film returns with charm and inventiveness intactIt would be so easy to make fun of the 1945 Noel Coward/ David Lean film in which, famously, noth…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:50PM[SHARE]Emma Rice's lauded version of the film returns with charm and inventiveness intactIt would be so easy to make fun of the 1945 Noel Coward/ David Lean film in which, famously, nothing ha…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:42AM[SHARE]Monday, February 12, 2018
Tom Stuchfield tells fascinating stories. They are jam-packed with detail: heroic, messy, bloody, romantic, humorous. Unfortunately, this rich material about a group
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 09:57AM[SHARE]Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Sue Healy's Imaginationship, previously staged as a reading at the Finborough, is expertly patterned. Events and characters, each embodying some aspect of
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 07:09AM[SHARE] 
