Monday, June 2, 2014
One blogger described the casting as 'ludicrous', but Nadia Albina says her physical disability helped her performance in Secret Theatre's showThere was a day in the runup to the opening of …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:23AMRon Athey's oddly moving performance art piece makes us stare at our own mortalityAt first sight, the intricately tattooed naked male body trapped on the metal rack could be a corpse. Hooks …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:54AMAn Inspector Calls and Blood Brothers are on the GCSE syllabus. I'd add some Polly Stenham and Caryl ChurchillSo Arthur Miller's The Crucible will no longer feature on the English Literature…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:28AMSunday, June 1, 2014
Orange Tree, London David Mamet's Squirrels captures moments of comedy, but it's Caryl Churchill's Joke that gets the biggest laugh in these productions from two up-and-coming directorsThe O…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PMThursday, May 29, 2014
Southwark Playhouse, LondonDavid Mercatali's adroit staging of Dalton Trumbo's novel is full of pain and rage Johnny Got His Gun: adapting the 'unstageable' anti-war novelBrass bands were pl…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:38AMHampstead Downstairs, LondonWhat is forgiveness, asks Nicholas Wright's tense true-story play, in which a psychologist interviews an apartheid assassinThere is a moment near the start of Nic…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:03AMWednesday, May 28, 2014
For me, theatre-going companions need to have an open mind and not talk about the show too much in the intervalA close friend of mine is the kiss of death at the theatre. It's become a bit …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:45AMRoyal and Derngate, NorthamptonSet around a poker table, this entertaining play lays bare the emotional inadequacies of men as fathers, sons and friends Poker faces: Patrick Marber's plays a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:20AMTuesday, May 27, 2014
Birmingham RepTestimony from writers covering conflicts in Iraq, Bosnia and Liberia forms the backbone of this unconventional show Lyn Gardner on truth and fiction in theatre The women who t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:29AMLondon WondergroundThe slinky Australian cabaret diva inflates the Southbank Centre's spiegeltent with comically choreographed disaster Read our Meow Meow interview hereThe coolest cat is ba…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:26AMMonday, May 26, 2014
Verbatim plays are lauded, but they are no more true as theatre than fiction, or even a combination of both: it's story that mattersOne of the errors that verbatim theatre often makes is to …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:41AMCaravan, BrightonThe tensions of family life are powerfully realised in a gender-swap dance of love, anger and regretThere are four people on stage. One pair is a real-life mother and daught…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:52AMSunday, May 25, 2014
Omnibus theatre, LondonThis retelling of the story of the last woman to be publically hanged in Dorset has some lovely elements, but leaves its characters underdevelopedIn 1856, Martha Brown…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:43AMFriday, May 23, 2014
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsBennett's Leeds-set 1980 flop is more misanthropic than his usual fare, and this revival does not overcome its flaws An A-Z of Alan Bennett Alan Bennett at 80:…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:45AMThursday, May 22, 2014
Corn Exchange, BrightonThere's a brutal beauty in Vanishing Point's admirable analysis of those who need care and those who provide itThe title of this latest piece from Vanishing Point, one…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:00PMWednesday, May 21, 2014
Shows such as King Lear and the choreographer Olivier Dubois's Tragédie can be punishing to watch, but that's what makes them interestingAlan Bennett recently said that one of the things th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:00AMSunday, May 18, 2014
Mercury, ColchesterPatrick Knowles swaggers as the misogynistic, womanising factory hand at the centre of this adaptation of Alan Sillitoe's 1958 novel"Screw the world" is the mott…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:45AMFriday, May 16, 2014
Ever sat through Godot expecting he's going to turn up? Or been surprised that Nora slams that door? You may not be aloneImagine living in a world where, as you watch a classic play for the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:10AMThursday, May 15, 2014
Theatre 503, LondonBoyzone's Keith Duffy stars in this revival of Billy Roche's 1988 play, the powerful story of a life without prospects or tendernessBoyzone band member Keith Duffy may be …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:24AMWednesday, May 14, 2014
The Chimerica playwright's latest project is surprisingly light on words, as she reworks a 'very dark, very cruel' Virginia Woolf tale of broken relationships with the choreographer Ben Duke…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:05AMArcola theatre, LondonComedy duo Totally Tom play an unusually young pair of tramps which may bring new audiences to Beckett's play, but doesn't entirely convinceThere is nothing new about …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:30AMTuesday, May 13, 2014
A play unsuitable for insomniacs, a musical sequel to The Tempest and a futuristic sound installation the maverick theatre group's 10th anniversary season pushes new boundariesBattersea Art…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:13AMOld Red Lion, LondonRage, suppressed emotion and family secrets in a Moscow flat provide the setting for this uneven but sharply funny playWho couldn't love a play that includes the line &qu…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:42AMSunday, May 11, 2014
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonLucy Bailey's returning revival of this vicious, bloody tragedy is still ingeniously disturbing, and much more than just a splatter festNasty, but oh so very, very…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMFriday, May 9, 2014
Arcola theatre, LondonSudha Bhuchar's unhysterical account of a schoolgirl caught between her mother and father and society pays dividends The Molly Campbell abduction scandal: from custod…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:42PMThe Arts Council is almost certainly the biggest funder of original plays in theatreland. Isn't it time commercial producers took more responsibility for pushing things forward?Is something …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:55AMThursday, May 8, 2014
His play The Last Days of Troy stars a supermodel, explores Iraq and considers the sexual excitement of war. It's a risk worth taking, says Simon ArmitageIn the poet Simon Armitage's new pla…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:31AMWednesday, May 7, 2014
Curve, LeicesterThis show based on a sermonising Victorian story has a fatal mix of blandness and mawkishnessVictorian morality is alive and well, and has been given an all-singing, all-danc…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:20AMTuesday, May 6, 2014
A cleverly constructed one-on-one piece that takes place in a bathing hut becomes a chain of performancesThere has been plenty of discussion recently about the distribution of theatre in the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:16AMBrighton festivalMedals pinned on chests suddenly resemble blood-splattered gunshot wounds in Dmitry Krymov's vivid and visceral play Dmitry Krymov on creating Opus No 7: 'Chaos is a magnet'…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:36AMMonday, May 5, 2014
Minerva, ChichesterLike the man in her most famous poem, Not Waving but Drowning, Wanamaker's Stevie Smith is all covert signalsShe stands before us, stooping slightly, in a shapeless red pi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:23AM 
