Friday, May 6, 2022
Pamela Carter’s slippery tale of a school trip to Nazi Germany explores the price of a stiff upper lip
“We all make history, one way or another.” But some of us make more history than…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:24AMMonday, April 18, 2022
With boisterous lyricism, Ryan Calais Cameron explores what it means to be a Black man
The title is so long that the Royal Court’s neon red lettering only renders the first three words, fo…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:36AMTuesday, March 22, 2022
1970s German classic skewers capitalism, but leaves emotional depths unplumbed
It’s not hard to see, watching Tom Fool at the Orange Tree Theatre, why Franz Xaver Kroetz is one of Germany…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:18AMTuesday, March 1, 2022
Award-winning hymn to Stephen Sondheim leans too heavily on in-jokes
Steven (David Ames) is having a birthday party. He’s invited his closest friends – two of whom have recently started …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:12AMThursday, February 24, 2022
Sonali Bhattacharyya's new play explores sisterly love and Islamophobia with warmth and wit
“You could read at home,” says Bettina (Anoushka Chadha), Year 10, her school uniform perfect…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:48AMFriday, February 11, 2022
Emma Rice's punk-rock reworking of the classic is brilliant - when it's good
“If you want romance,” the cast of Emma Rice’s new version of Wuthering Heights say in unison just after t…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:54AMTuesday, February 1, 2022
Aptly-named new play from Paul Anthony Morris shows the effects of racism on one man’s psyche
Conundrum is a tricky play. Written and directed by Paul Anthony Morris, founder of Crying in …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:18AMFriday, November 19, 2021
Zadie Smith's updated Chaucerian tale has a spring in its step and a twinkle in its eye
Zadie Smith might not be the only writer who can rhyme "tandem" with "galdem", but she’s the only o…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:54AMSaturday, November 6, 2021
Spellbinding adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel reminds us of the terror and beauty of childhood
This show has been a long time coming. Neil Gaiman had the first inklings of The Ocean at the…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:24AMThursday, November 4, 2021
Bombastic karaoke adaption of Jane Austen classic gives the spotlight to the servants
“We haven’t started yet!” Hannah-Jarrett Scott, dressed in Doc Martens under a 19th-century shift…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:42AMWednesday, October 20, 2021
Edited Inquiry transcripts expose the hypocrisy and incompetence behind the tragedy
Grenfell: Value Engineering isn’t actually a play. It’s an edited version of the testimony heard by t…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:18AMTuesday, October 19, 2021
Race and belonging are interrogated unevenly in this Australian drama
“Careful, there’s a hole in the floor.” The warning’s an unusual one, passed along conscientiously by the stewa…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:24AMSunday, October 3, 2021
Canadian writer Jordan Hall’s exploration of modern relationships provokes without fully satisfying
Despite its painfully relevant title, How To Survive An Apocalypse was written in 2016.…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:36PMTuesday, September 21, 2021
Strong performances and a gorgeous set just about save a lacklustre script
The Coronet Theatre is a beautiful space – it’s a listed Victorian building, and the bar’s like something out…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:18AMFriday, August 13, 2021
Kae Tempest’s urgent new adaptation of Sophocles puts women centre-stage
Philoctetes, Odysseus, Neoptolemus: the men’s names in Sophocles’ Philoctetes are all unnecessarily long and …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:54AMWednesday, August 11, 2021
Michelle Terry is gunning for a second Olivier with her first Viola
The greatest version of Twelfth Night is not called Twelfth Night. It is, of course, the 2006 masterpiece She’s the Man…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:03AMTuesday, July 20, 2021
Emma Corrin and Nabhaan Rizwan perk up one-dimensional drama about a Russian conwoman
There just isn’t enough there, with ANNA X. Daniel Raggett’s production is the third and final of th…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:54AMSaturday, July 17, 2021
The lighting's gorgeous, but Bryony Lavery's drama about theatre friendships never quite clicks
Last Easter has become a lot more relatable since it was forced to postpone this run at the Or…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:12AMThursday, July 8, 2021
Scott Karim soars in taut revival of Ayad Akhtar’s political thriller
A lot’s changed since Kiln Theatre boss Indhu Rubasingham directed The Invisible Hand’s first UK outing in 2016, …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:54AMFriday, July 2, 2021
Atim and Jeremiah flare bright, Wanamaker and Capaldi burn slow
A cosmologist and a beekeeper walk into a barbecue. Or a wedding. The beekeeper is in a relationship, or married, or just out…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:24AMMonday, May 3, 2021
Adrian Lukis proves himself far better at portraying Austen's rake than he is at writing him
It wasn’t Jane Austen’s subtlest move, naming her roguish soldier George Wickham. As countle…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 09:33PMSaturday, April 3, 2021
Third instalment of the irreverent series takes on Boris, star signs, and casual sexism
“The crocus of hope is, er, poking through the frost.” When he uttered that dodgy metaphor back in…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:32AMWednesday, March 24, 2021
The theatre's local community assembles a strange little show about the apocalypse
“Your task is to imagine the future.” That’s what the citizens of Assembly, a new streamed production…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:03AMThursday, February 25, 2021
Playful interactive show casts audience members as amateur detectives
I’ll admit, I’ve never been a fan of murder mysteries. Patience is not one of my virtues; if I can’t work somethi…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:04AMFriday, February 12, 2021
Sian Clifford and Nikesh Patel do their best with a show that's as mercurial as grief
Good Grief, a new show from American screenwriter and playwright Lorien Haynes, can’t work out what i…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:24AMTuesday, January 12, 2021
Sharon D Clarke and Olivia Colman sparkle in delightful radio play in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital
The blurb for Peter Pan: The Audio Adventure, Shaun McKenna’s new adaptation of J…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:18AMThursday, December 24, 2020
The Royal Court’s experimental piece is political theatre at its finest and fiercest
Edition 2 of Living Newspaper: A Counter Narrative, an experimental new piece of online theatre from th…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:03PMWednesday, December 16, 2020
Gregory Doran's outdated vision of Greek myth is bolstered by five great performances
At just under five hours, Troy Story, the RSC’s adaptation of as many tales from Greek myth, takes ab…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:54AMWednesday, November 11, 2020
Scorching adaptation of Ovid is a welcome theatrical respite from lockdown
Women have an awful time of it in the Greek myths. Raped, abandoned, blamed for murdering people, blamed for not m…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:12AMSaturday, September 26, 2020
Socially-distanced dramedy is short and sweet, with a knockout performance from Remmie Milner
The first words of Sunnymead Court, a new play at the Tristan Bates Theatre, are ominous. “We…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:36AMMonday, September 7, 2020
Real-life theatre bounces back with this lovely meander through grief and loneliness
A woman sits on a bench. She’s got a song stuck in her head – she can’t remember how one of the lin…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:12AM 
