Tuesday, November 26, 2019
An electric interpretation in which the White Witch – like the devil – has all the best tunes
We all remember that moment when we walked through the back of the wardrobe: the heaviness o…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:33AMMonday, November 18, 2019
The script misses all that was distinctive about Berlin and Akhmatova's meeting
How do you begin to dramatise one of the most extraordinary conversations of the 20th century between two of i…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:54AMTuesday, November 5, 2019
Wendell Pierce confirms a performance as exciting as any this theatrical year
It is 70 years since Willy Loman first paced a Broadway stage; 70 years since audiences were sucked into the vor…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:48AMWednesday, October 30, 2019
RSC transfers works best when it engages with the complex emotions of the play
Even the most ardent Bardophile has to admit that most of the time the Fool doesn’t shine in a Shakespeare…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:18AMTuesday, October 22, 2019
A potent anatomy of how words and power intertwine
At a point in history where – yet again – a few misplaced words from English politicians could wreak havoc with Irish lives, this is a …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:18PMFriday, October 11, 2019
First-time playwright Ruby Thomas is a daring and exciting new voice
This ingenious short work deftly investigates themes of love and identity with a breezy assurance that marks first time …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:48AMFriday, September 20, 2019
Incisive, intelligent and deeply moving
The Permanent Way first roared its way into the national consciousness in 2003 when, after a triumphant opening in York, it toured the UK before tran…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:12AMFriday, September 6, 2019
The evening is as devastatingly moving as it is bitingly funny
If Russia is, as Winston Churchill once so memorably said, “a riddle, wrapped inside a mystery, wrapped inside an enigma”, …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:03AMWednesday, August 28, 2019
A resonant tragedy of mutual incomprehension, fresh from the Edinburgh Festival
Neil Armfield’s resonant, turbulent production of Kate Grenville’s classic Australian novel The Secret Riv…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:54AMTuesday, July 16, 2019
Energetic two-hander offers a sparky portrait of a transforming city
This witty street-smart play about a white-skinned boy born to a mixed-race mother deploys its narrative with the dexteri…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:48AMWednesday, July 3, 2019
Navigating the script is a bit like going in a car with a driver who's just passed their test
This lovingly lo-tech visit to galaxies far far away is a curious proposition, which, while neit…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:48AMWednesday, June 12, 2019
Nicholas Hytner's vivacious 21st-century take shines like a disco glitterball
Nicholas Hytner’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Bridge Theatre is a feat of exuberant brilliance, a gende…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:36AMSunday, May 26, 2019
A moving antidote to fast-paced narratives and rampant individualism
Our Town was written shortly before World War Two about a small town in America in the years leading up to World War One,…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 09:36PMThursday, May 23, 2019
A simultaneously sweeping and intimately human production
Mammon and Yahweh are the presiding deities over an epic enterprise that tells the story not just of three brothers who founded a ba…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:24AMWednesday, May 15, 2019
Roy Williams revival looks beyond the headlines to see the codes, complexity and camaraderie of crime
We are living in a time when gang culture rips and roars its way down London streets, an…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:54AMThursday, May 2, 2019
The production's levity eviscerates the underpinning emotional realities
Often the greatest works of dramatic absurdism spring from the worst extremes of human experience, whether it’s Ion…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:06AMSunday, April 7, 2019
A soaringly irreverent postmodern caper through shifting attitudes to homosexuality
A loo with fuschia-pink carpet to catch splashback; an Archbishop of Canterbury who’s in it for the skir…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:00PMThursday, March 28, 2019
A spikily poignant reminder of humanity in politically dark times
In an age where political, social, and gender norms seem to be in perpetual meltdown, it should be pretty much impossible fo…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:19AMMonday, March 18, 2019
Adjoa Andoh is a magnetic Richard with her hawk-like glare and vigorous swagger
Richard II has become the drama of our times, as it walks us through the impotent convulsions of a weak and va…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:30AMWednesday, March 13, 2019
Anna Washburn's play for the Almeida achieves lift-off in the West End
As China and the US arm-wrestle for world-domination in everything from trade to military power, we find ourselves in t…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:15AMFriday, February 15, 2019
This dark comedy raises disturbing questions about sound and intimacyTwo men called "Massimo" face the audience, one very tall, one very, well, minimo. The tall Massimo (Tom Espiner, picture…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:12AMWednesday, February 6, 2019
Sex and technology run like faultlines through this workThere is no doubt that this Cherry Orchard, whirled into town by Roman Abramovich from Moscow, is going to be divisive. If you, like …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:48AMThursday, January 31, 2019
Revolution is about youth, music, anger, and - frankly - sexIs there a connection between revolution and theatre? The answer has to be yes – a visceral one. The supremacy of symbols, the c…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:32AMWednesday, January 16, 2019
Revelations that should feel toxic seem tepidTheatrical alchemy is eternally slippery.
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:24AMWednesday, December 19, 2018
Shakespeare's study of flawed leadership becomes a paralable for our ageJoe Hill-Gibbins’ uncompromising production of The Tragedy of Richard II for the Almeida hurtles through Shakes…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:48AMTuesday, December 18, 2018
Justin Audibert's production excels at portraying the book's alchemical qualitiesIf you’re looking for a Christmas with more pagan edge than saccharine cheer, where the wolves ar…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:36AMFriday, December 7, 2018
A deceptive lightness of tone brings new resonance to the textWhat do you gain by casting Dr Faustus and Mephistopheles as women? In the programme for this often illuminating production, dir…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:18AMMonday, December 3, 2018
Our heroine is torn between the charms of a washing-machine inventor and a CountThe convention-challenging sexually adventurous life of Glaswegian writer Aimée Stuart is worth a play all on…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:54AMWednesday, November 21, 2018
West End transfer from the Almeida retains pressure-cooker intensityThis production of Tennessee Williams’ neglected classic, Summer and Smoke, arrives from the Almeida into the West End w…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:24AMThursday, November 15, 2018
A daring counterintuitive reading proves richly rewardingMacbeth has rarely seemed quite as metrosexual as in this gorgeous shadow-painted production that marks artistic director at the Glob…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:32AMFriday, November 2, 2018
This scalpel-sharp drama anatomises marital breakdown with cold-eyed clarityAdultery seldom looks less adult than in the form of the mild-life crisis – that much-satirised condition in whi…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:24AM 
