Lynn Nottage’s 2018 play gets an exquisite staging with moving performances The work of the double Pulitzer-winning Black American dramatist Lynn Nottage has thankfully become a fixture in…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:49AMThe affable American humourist proves death becomes him Few comedians are such good company that you never want them to stop. The young Billy Connolly was one such; affable American Mike Bi…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:55AMYasmin Reza's savage study of the middle-classes becomes a farce lacking in danger Yasmin Reza’s God of Carnage (2008), like her British megahit, 1994’s ART, is not strictly a comedy. Th…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 01:19AMTwin miseries of bipolar disorder and grief are given an unusual treatment The journey from off-Broadway to central London has taken 15 years, but the multi-award-winning musical Next to N…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 12:19PMThe Public Acts project creates a model mix of high and low for a modern ensemble One of the great wonders of Western literary history is one of the earliest, Homer’s The Odyssey, an epic …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:55AMGillian Slovo's incendiary play points a finger at the bureaucrats at the heart of the tragedy The shadow of Grenfell Tower has already produced Nick Kent and Richard Norton-Taylor’s dispa…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:04AMTwo students clash over changing the world with a playlist The revolution in the title of AJ Yi’s new play at the Bush is the one activists hoped to set in motion in Hong Kong in 2019, whe…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 01:07AMWill Young brings sweetness to a thin scenario Lucky Will Young: the production of the Simon Stephens monologue Song from Far Away that he is delivering at the Hampstead Theatre is directed…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:08AMMichael R Jackson's writing talent finds a claustrophobic outlet If you are going to see A Strange Loop, the new American musical trailing a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize that has arrived …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 01:07AMA star turn from Gabriel Vick powers a lively but loud adaptation The heart sinks (mine does, anyway) as the latest film-to-musical adaptation rolls into town, all with similar sound-worlds,…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:55PMPupils at an elite Ghanaian school learn home truths about their country The alternative title of Jocelyn Bioh’s 2017 play School Girls, The African Mean Girls Play, might indicate that it…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:04AMEasy targets and predictable jibes let down an ambitious production There are flashes during Idiots Assemble: Spitting Image The Musical of the old mordant humour from the show's heyday,…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:07AMA winning ensemble led by Jamie Parker deliver a refreshing piece The short story F Scott Fitzgerald wrote as a challenge, of a man born 70 years old whose body gets younger as the years pas…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 01:43AMA bravura turn from Andy Karl propels a tricky piece over its self-created speed bumps Groundhog Day, appropriately, is back where it started. The hit film about a TV weatherman’s endlessl…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:55AMForgotten Miles Malleson play deserves its revival Miles Malleson, known as an inter-war character actor who popped up in numerous small roles on stage and screen, was also a surprisingly p…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:49AMThe Master's life seen close up but with no warts Devoted fans may not learn anything that new about Noel Coward from Barnaby Thompson’s documentary Mad About the Boy, but they will doubtl…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:06AMDickie Beau creates a tribute to past Hamlets, one in particular Lip-syncing has become the hobby of many a young TikToker, but only an intrepid professional would contemplate using the tech…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:18AMNikhil Parmar delivers his play with passion and wit The Bond film theme plays and the lights go up at the Bush’s Studio space to reveal, not a tuxedoed superspy, but a slim figure in cas…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:12AMFive actors plus loads of silly hats and accents add up to a hilarious evening It’s back yet again, Operation Mincemeat, a gift of a story that goes on giving. It surfaced as the 1956 film…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:12AMThe Windrush scandal embodied with wrenching power Reggae hits are already playing over the speaker system at the Bush when the audience enters, some jigging to the sounds as they find their…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:36AMBizarre directorial choices derail the play's serious content There was a jolting eco-themed work onstage in London recently, but sadly A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction, a Headl…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:36AMLynn Nottage and a faultless cast offer a story that's a hymn to hope The cast of The Secret Life of Bees first parade onto the Almeida stage hefting big glass storage jars full of a golden …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:54AMGiles Terera delivers a dramatic lecture on the legacy of slavery There’s a moment in the opening stretch of Giles Terera’s The Meaning of Zong where you think the former Hamilton star …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:12AMEugene O'Hare treads familiar ground with his confessional about alcoholism Eugene O’Hare’s The Dry House is the kind of spare but oddly lyrical three-hander that would have made a good …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:06AMA terrific ensemble make an exhilarating plea for Black boys with blighted lives For a show that comes with a trigger warning about the themes of racism, gang violence, toxic relationships, …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:24AMPulitzer finalist asks how good an ally is modern technology Artificial intelligence has become an even hotter topic since Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime was first staged in Los Angeles …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:57AMNicholas Hytner and a crack cast deliver a fresh take on the classic musical It now seems an inevitability that Marisha Wallace will be a frontrunner at next year's theatre awards, not just…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:55AMIt's more adult panto than mature musical, with the sauce liberally ladled on If you are hoping for some harmless fun at The Great British Bake Off Musical, probably with a few dodgy jokes a…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:41AMA vivacious cast are great fun to hang out with Can a play ever be a bit too much like real life? The thought came to me while watching Matilda Feyisayo Ibini’s entertaining new play Slee…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:49AMMichael John O'Neill's debut stirs up questions but not emotions Michael John O’Neill’s first full-length play, premiering at the Hampstead's studio space downstairs, is a puzzler. There…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 12:58AMAffecting revival of Tom Kempinski play about an ailing musician and her therapist This 1981 two-hander was opened out for a film in 1986, starring Julie Andrews no less, with all its offst…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:33AM