Friday, July 1, 2011
A feast of festivals – with Victoria Wood on song in Manchester and a fusion of female fury and Greek tragedy in BirminghamThere is no such thing as a quiet period in theatre any longer. J…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:38PMThursday, June 30, 2011
Barbican, LondonThese days, a lot of theatre can put you to sleep quicker than a sedative, as almost any night in the West End proves. The lights go down, and the whole of row E no…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:59PMTheatremakers must work together if they are to survive, say speakers at a recent UK-wide arts symposium"Collaboration" has been one of the buzz words of the year in the arts, but quite what…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:51AMWednesday, June 29, 2011
Crucible, SheffieldIt is 1958 and illustrator Sylvia has invited Oliver, a children's author, to meet her husband Philip. The elephant in the room is not just hanging on the living room wall…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:21PMTuesday, June 28, 2011
Watermill, BagnorSomething very curious happens during Kate Saxon's revival of Beaumarchais's comedy. The play premiered just five years before the 1789 revolution, and provided the inspirat…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMFriday, June 24, 2011
Move over Glastonbury, we've got our own festivals up and down the country; and there's a battle of Richard IIIs raging in London So many pleasures to come this week, with the Greenwich and…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:32PMTuesday, June 21, 2011
Arcola, LondonChekhov's play loses the definitive article in its title, and has some cuts (demanded by the censor before its 1896 premiere) restored in this new version by Charlotte Pyke, Jo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:15PMMonday, June 20, 2011
Soho Theatre, LondonArtistic director Steve Marmion's Soho reign gets off to a promising start with a play about a man spending Saturday doing nothing. It's not even a new play, having …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMWednesday, June 15, 2011
New Alexandra, BirminghamThe Wiz is not quite the biz, in fact it doesn't even come close. Never mind, this 1975 musical which neatly imprints the black American experience on the Wizard of …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:48PMTuesday, June 14, 2011
In an age of cuts, would regional theatre be better served by investing in people and ideas rather than bricks and mortar?If travel broadens the mind, that goes for theatres too. It's going …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:05AMFinborough, LondonWhat a bizarre little show this is. From its topsy-turvy title to its outmoded sexual politics and racial stereotypes, Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley's 1964 musical is …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:05AMMonday, June 13, 2011
From a Noh-style love story in Glasgow to The Pride in Sheffield, there's plenty around ahead of the festival season – and don't forget your Handbag in YorkshireIn the week in which the Ed…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:30AMSunday, June 12, 2011
Soho theatre, LondonIt's not surprising that playwrights are drawn towards restorative justice, the process by which the perpetrators and victims of crimes are brought together in an attempt…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PMThursday, June 9, 2011
Murrays' Mills, Manchester"The mills lead us to no further destination than death," says the weaver Stephen Blackpool in Charles Dickens's novel, set among the misery and ignorance of Coketo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:12PMMurrays' Mills, Manchester"The mills lead us to no further destination than death," says the weaver Stephen Blackpool in Charles Dickens's novel, set among the misery and ignorance of Coketo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:12PMWednesday, June 8, 2011
It's the hottest ticket at this year's Manchester festival, a Doctor Who adventure in which you have one terrifying hour to save the world. The catch? It's only for kids. Director Felix Barr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:30PMRoyal and Derngate, NorthamptonStella Kirby (a bewitching Charlotte Emmerson) ran away to be an actor eight years ago. Now she has unexpectedly returned to the family home, Eden End. But the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:47AMMonday, June 6, 2011
Oval House, LondonPromise comes with a name attached: Arinze Kene. A Nigerian-born actor turned playwright, Kene follows up the award-winning Estate Walls with a trio of intercut monologues …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:32PMSunday, June 5, 2011
Northern Stage, NewcastleTheatres are often wary of programming new work, convinced it will not do well at the box office. But as micro-festivals have proved, if new work is packaged in inte…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:33AMFriday, June 3, 2011
Sheffield CrucibleThere's plenty to make Christopher Luscombe's revival of Harold Brighouse's 1915 comedy well worth a ticket. One reason is simply that this play is absolutely bomb-proof. F…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:44PMFrom Avon Calling to Zu Aerial, there's plenty of theatrical activity all around the UK worthy of your attentionGood things may be coming to an end over the coming week including Mike Bartle…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:29PMThursday, June 2, 2011
Curve, LeicesterScratch-and-sniff theatre comes to family audiences with this musical adaptation of David Walliams's best-selling children's novel about the homeless Mr Stink, "the stinkiest…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:08PMFriday, May 27, 2011
A quiet holiday weekend still spells the start of the Midlands' Neat festival, as a second Much Ado gets under way in LondonAnother bank holiday spells a slightly quieter theatre week ahead,…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:18AMThursday, May 26, 2011
From the Pulse festival in Ipswich to Brighton's 5x5, regional theatre is reaching beyond the mainstreamKeep It Local is the title of a debate that just took place at the New Wolsey in Ipswi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:13PMSunday, May 22, 2011
Finborough, LondonUgliness and beauty sit side by side in Naomi Wallace's play set in segregated America in the 1950s. Taking its title from an Emily Dickinson poem, it's a drama that brings…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:16PMFriday, May 20, 2011
A bumper week opens with the close of the NNF and features Tennant and Tate being much outdone by a rival pairingThere's a lot happening in the east of the country this week, as the Norwich …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:47PMThursday, May 19, 2011
Minerva, ChichesterThere is an exquisite moment near the start of Stephen Mear's revival of this soppy 1963 Broadway musical about two squabbling parfumerie assistants in the 1930s who don't…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMWednesday, May 18, 2011
Brighton festival fringeIt's not often I find myself closeted with a naked man in a bathroom, but that's the set-up for Theatre North's theatrical excavation of Herman Melville's unfini…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:23PMTuesday, May 17, 2011
With Michael Sheen's The Passion uniting Port Talbot, and the Gulbenkian Foundation offering a new award, participatory theatre is on the up. But is it always as good as it can be?Many years…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:07AMMonday, May 16, 2011
Brighton FestivalBoth Pinter and site-specific theatre emerge as winners from Hydrocracker's deeply unsettling 75-minute piece played out in the dizzying heights and dank depths of Brighton …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:08PMOne of Britain's leading female playwrights known for Piaf, Queen Christina and StanleyIn her best-known work, Piaf, the playwright Pam Gems, who has died aged 85, developed a new form somew…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:58AM 
