Friday, May 25, 2012
Almeida, London I find myself wondering what Matthew Dunster's new play is really about. Is it a satire on the perils of TV fame, a study of the fragility of friendship, or a didactic warnin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:20AMWednesday, May 23, 2012
Duke of York's, LondonWith even a Tory attacking the "arrogant, posh boys" who run her party, now seems a good time to revive Laura Wade's 2010 play.It has undergone a good deal of revision …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:01PMTuesday, May 22, 2012
Hampstead theatre, London"Will it run?" people asked when they first heard that the celebrated 1981 movie was to be adapted for the stage. That question seems to have been answered by the ne…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:58PMFor decades, Britain ignored European, African and Asian theatre. But do we now have an uncritical acceptance of anything foreign?Do we in Britain suffer from theatrical xenophobia? I used t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:27AMMonday, May 21, 2012
As playwright Arnold Wesker turns 80, he talks about his early successes, his later battles – and the day he tried to flog his entire oeuvre for £10,000'I don't feel I'm known as a playwr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:30PMFriday, May 18, 2012
Chichester festival theatreHugh Whitemore has written a play about something that sounds eerily familiar: a legally dubious British invasion of a Middle Eastern country run by a militaristic…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:16AMThursday, May 17, 2012
Savoy, LondonAmerica's Danny DeVito and Britain's Richard Griffiths join forces in this joyous revival of Neil Simon's 1972 comedy about a pair of superannuated vaudevillians. But what makes…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:02PMVaudeville, LondonJoe Orton's final play, unrevised at the time of his death in 1967, is a hard one to get right, since it combines manic farce with non-stop social commentary. That doesn't …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:01AMWednesday, May 16, 2012
Cottesloe, LondonThere's room for more than one play about American suburbia. But, after the brilliance of Bruce Norris's Clybourne Park at the Royal Court, which dealt with the intersection…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:24PMTuesday, May 15, 2012
Lyric Hammersmith, LondonI am normally wary of futuristic fables, since they brook no disagreement: we can't challenge the writer's experience with our own. But Edward Bond's piece, set…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:45AMWednesday, May 9, 2012
Aldwych, LondonThe nostalgia market gets a further boost with the arrival of this amiable stage version of the celebrated Astaire-Rogers 1935 RKO musical. The evening can be quickly summed u…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:37PMLyric Hammersmith, LondonPlaywright Simon Stephens has long registered his horror at the heartless world of commodified sex we now inhabit. Given the current headlines, you could s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:10PMShakespeare's Globe, LondonThis is the third Polish Macbeth London has seen in recent years, and there is yet another to come at the Edinburgh international festival. But, while this version…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:43AMTuesday, May 8, 2012
Finborough, LondonOriginally seen as a BBC Play for Today in 1974, watching Trevor Griffiths's All Good Men makes one painfully nostalgic for a time when TV was unafraid to show serious poli…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:42PMTheatre that incorporates the words of real people has never been more popular – and has proved itself infinitely flexibleVerbatim theatre, as Will Hammond and Dan Steward point out in the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:50AMTheatre that incorporates the words of real people has never been more popular – and has proved itself infinitely flexible Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:50AMMonday, May 7, 2012
Shoreham, SussexThe hottest ticket at the Brighton festival is this 90-minute "meditation on Hamlet" staged by the experimental company dreamthinkspeak. Two years ago they caused a stir with…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMFriday, May 4, 2012
Royal Court, LondonMike Bartlett, as we know from plays such as 13 and Cock, can write big or small. In this piece, originally produced by Paines Plough and the Drum Plymouth in 2010, he com…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMThursday, May 3, 2012
Royal Court, LondonBola Agbaje has made a name for herself with plays such as Gone Too Far! and Off the Endz, which showed her to be a sharp, witty observer of London life. Now she extends h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:15PMTuesday, May 1, 2012
British drama's secret weapon is university-trained talent – from the venerable theatre societies of Oxbridge to world-beating modern drama departmentsI don't know how it is in other Europ…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:32AMWednesday, April 25, 2012
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonWarning: contains spoilers about the productionI know it's a cliche but it's true: foreign-language Shakespeare, necessarily an adaptation, often has a liberating …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:25AMTuesday, April 24, 2012
Donmar Warehouse, LondonOn the way to the theatre I happened to pick up, at a second-hand bookstall, a copy of a volume that contains a story by the artist-writer Denton Welch about an eccen…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:09PMSunday, April 22, 2012
As someone who hasn't read Jung Chang's memoir, I came to this stage version with an open mind. I was bowled over by Sacha Wares's production, jointly presented by the Young Vic, American Re…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:09PMFriday, April 20, 2012
The Swan, Stratford-upon-AvonWith its blend of party hats, pop music, pomp and circumstance and latex balloons, Maria Aberg's production of this unloved play is certainly never dull. But whi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:42PMThursday, April 19, 2012
Cardiff High School, WalesBradley Manning, as most people know, is a 24-year-old US soldier accused of releasing 250,000 secret cables and logs about the Iraq and Afghan wars to WikiLeaks. W…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:01PMWednesday, April 18, 2012
Swan, Stratford-upon-AvonYou can present Richard III either as the climax of a Shakespeare history cycle or as a star vehicle. But Roxana Silbert's new RSC production, while perfectly credit…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:11PMMonday, April 16, 2012
Only a handful of Oliviers were awarded for work stemming from the commercial sector – proving that the West End is merely showcasing exciting productions, not creating themAt least I got …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:02AMSunday, April 15, 2012
Barbican, LondonHow times change! When Botho Strauss's play was first seen in Britain in 1983 it was greeted with boos and mass walkouts on its pre-West End tour. Now it arrives in a crisp n…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:16AMFriday, April 13, 2012
Bush, LondonIt takes chutzpah for a man to write an all-woman play. But Lee Mattinson pulls off a tricky feat with panache in this initially raucous comedy about recurring family get-togethe…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:42PMWednesday, April 11, 2012
As the director of 2012's Brighton festival, Vanessa Redgrave hopes to save the Earth, fix the economy and uncover the real origins of the Arab spring. So why does Michael Billington th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PMAs the director of 2012's Brighton festival, Vanessa Redgrave hopes to save the Earth, fix the economy and uncover the real origins of the Arab spring. So why does Michael Billington th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PM 
