Monday, February 21, 2011
Royal Court, LondonOne of the virtues of the Royal Court's International Playwrights Season is that it brings us news from abroad. And this intriguing 90-minute play by Pedro Miguel Rozo, se…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:00PMFriday, February 18, 2011
Barbican, LondonRobert Lepage made his name internationally with The Dragons' Trilogy, created in 1985. Now he returns to the subject of the cultural collision of east and west in what he ca…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:26PMThursday, February 17, 2011
Crucible, SheffieldDavid Hare's play gets richer with time. Acclaimed in 1990 for its accurate portrait of a Church of England in crisis, it now seems a perfect metaphor for British ins…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:06PMWednesday, February 16, 2011
Jerwood Vanbrugh, LondonA special fascination attaches to the early work of celebrated dramatists: you invariably get a first sketch of their lifelong obsessions. This youthful Noël Co…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:17PMTuesday, February 15, 2011
Print Room, London"Can't a ghost story reveal insights into human nature?" Alan Ayckbourn asked before this play's 2002 Scarborough premiere. The answer is that of course it can: one has onl…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:44PMMonday, February 14, 2011
Orange Tree, RichmondNo one could accuse this theatre of ducking the Arab-Israeli conflict. A year ago it staged an absorbing play, Ben Brown's The Promise, about the Balfour Declaration of …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:56AMThursday, February 10, 2011
Royal Court, LondonClimate change drama is the new growth industry. But, while the National's Greenland is entirely issue-driven, Richard Bean's new play uses characters to explore ideas. Th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:20PMWednesday, February 9, 2011
Comedy Theatre, LondonThere's only one question to which everyone wants the answer: can Keira Knightley and Elisabeth Moss cut the mustard? The short answer is that they prove as potent a co…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:54PMCrucible Studio, SheffieldA three-play David Hare season kicks off with a revival of his 1978 study of the lies and disappointments of the postwar world. And, even if I'd like to see the pla…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:15PMMonday, February 7, 2011
Young Vic, LondonWhen it first appeared in 2007 Tanya Ronder's adaptation of DBC Pierre's prize-winning novel was somewhat overshadowed by a shooting on a Virginia campus which eerily echoed…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:34PMList of contenders accurately reflects the dominance last year of acting and directing over new writingNo great shocks in the list of this year's Olivier award nominees: it reflects, pretty …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:26AMThursday, February 3, 2011
Finborough, LondonThis is a rediscovery: a 1950 play by Emlyn Williams that provides an exciting suspense-drama, a portrait of the Jekyll-and-Hyde existence of a successful novelist and a me…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:15PMWednesday, February 2, 2011
The Gallery Soho, LondonIt makes total sense to present Neil LaBute's 10-year-old play in a chic Charing Cross Road gallery. His theme is the nature of art and the moral responsibility of th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:22PMTuesday, February 1, 2011
Lyttelton, LondonHow on earth do you dramatise climate change? The best answer so far was Steve Waters' double bill, The Contingency Plan, which approached the vast topic through personal re…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:52PMMonday, January 31, 2011
Royal Exchange, ManchesterSchool plays are all the rage. Vivienne Franzmann's piece, joint winner of the 2008 Bruntwood Playwriting Competition, anticipated the vogue in its exploration of t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:53PMHigh ticket prices are fuelling this rise in box-office takings, and London theatre can't just rely on spin-offs and musicalsI'm always cheered when the theatre is doing well. And, on the su…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:59AMThursday, January 27, 2011
King's Head, LondonMatthew Bugg has written the book and lyrics, composed the score and also directed this late-night chamber musical. While I admire his energy, I wish he could have found a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:15PMTuesday, January 25, 2011
Bush, LondonSteve Waters was the first dramatist to comprehensively tackle global warming with The Contingency Plan. He is now ahead of the pack in confronting the subject of so-called "free…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PMMonday, January 24, 2011
Lyric, HammersmithJeremy Dyson, who co-wrote the Lyric's long-running Ghost Stories, has now adapted five of Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected. The result is something of a mixed bag. One…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:52PMJermyn Street, LondonYou don't expect to find a Rattigan "world premiere" in the dramatist's centenary year. In fact, this is the original version of a play produced in 1944 under the title …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:09PMSunday, January 23, 2011
Noel Coward, LondonSponsored by Roman Abramovich, Moscow's Sovremennik Theatre arrived in London for a brief nine-day residence. The largely Russian-speaking first-night audience also greete…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:59PMThursday, January 20, 2011
Almeida LondonThe Almeida has a strong track-record in producing American plays. And it was of one of its favoured sons, Neil LaBute, that I was reminded watching this astute, acerbic and ri…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42PMHampstead Theatre, LondonWith the NHS facing its biggest revolution in 60 years, now is the time for a play about the realities of hospital life. But, while Nina Raine follows up her Tribes …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:43AMTuesday, January 18, 2011
Cottesloe, National TheatreThis is Peter Hall's fourth production of Shakespeare's most beautiful, opal-like comedy. And, even if it cannot efface golden memories of the one he did at Stratf…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:40PMWhite Bear, LondonThe textbooks all tell us that postwar British theatre, prior to the Royal Court revolution of the mid-1950s, was as arid as the Gobi desert. But a popular myth, lately den…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:01PMMonday, January 17, 2011
Bush, LondonThere is a long line of plays about educational no-hopers, from Barry Reckord's Skyvers to Nigel Williams's Class Enemy. While John Donnelly's new play, which kicks off a Bush sc…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:18PMRose, KingstonShakespeare's sonnets can be read in any number of ways: as literary exercise, autobiographical narrative or anatomy of love. Peter Brook clearly leans towards the last. In thi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:00PMSunday, January 16, 2011
Arcola, LondonThe Arcola has moved to inviting new premises: a converted paint factory in Dalston whose colour blocks were made famous by Turner and Constable and that, with its brick walls …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:31PMStar of Tom Jones and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, she defied typecastingSusannah York, who has died aged 72, was a vibrant, energetic personality with a devouring passion for work, stron…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:38AMThursday, January 13, 2011
Cock Tavern, LondonPau Miró's play has been a big hit in its native Catalonia but it's not immediately easy to see why. What it offers, in the course of 80 minutes, is a faintly louche vari…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:31PMWednesday, January 12, 2011
Orange Tree, RichmondStudents of French farce can have a field day with this one. Written in 1875 by Alfred Hennequin and Alfred Delacour, and here niftily translated by Reggie Oliver, it pr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:46PM 
