Lyric Hammersmith, LondonLesley Sharp’s Irina moves from delight to despair in Simon Stephens’s incisive 21st-century versionSo Masha has become Marcia. She is not subjected to the most …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMEveryman, LiverpoolKneehigh are on top form in Carl Grose’s audacious Günter Grass adaptationA grand old place has been ransacked. In the background, faded ochre walls and windows precari…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMWyndhams, LondonSimon Stephens’s May-to-September love story is beautifully played by Anne-Marie Duff and Kenneth Cranham in Marianne Elliott’s inspired productionSimon Stephens’s new …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMMenier Chocolate Factory, LondonFlorian Zeller’s tricksy, philosophical new play finds two couples debating the ethics of falsehoodFlorian Zeller and his translator Christopher Hampton bro…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMNoël Coward theatre, LondonJames Graham’s new play, starring Martin Freeman as a Blairite MP and Tamsin Greig as his old-school constituency agent, cleverly illuminates party divisionsFiv…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMMiverva, ChichesterAlongside Sinéad Cusack, Dervla Kirwan and Phil Daniels, McKellen is deftly authoritative as Lear in a production full of fine performances and clever touchesSome of the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMGate; Barbican, LondonAn exciting rising star and imaginative production make for an enthralling trip to The Unknown Island, and a take on Bergman is stylish but slow-movingIf I were a casti…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:33AMYoung Vic, LondonThe actor gives an extraordinary performance, but even she cannot quite convey the turmoil of a woman who has suffered a strokeSometimes Juliet Stevenson looks like a parach…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:18AMHampstead theatre, LondonRobert Lindsay plays the role of the late cinematographer Jack Cardiff with astonishing skill, but the play lacks focusTerry Johnson has given himself a hard task wi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:18AMNational Theatre, LondonA riveting reimagining of the secret talks that set up the historic Oslo peace accordsI went into Oslo expecting to be informed, and fairly confident of being interes…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:18AMOrange Tree, RichmondSue Wallace and Ian Gelder are outstanding as a bickering elderly couple in David Storey’s play about a family reunionIt is a long time since I have seen a tasselled l…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:24AMGlobe, LondonGina McKee is a brave, bloody-minded queen of the Iceni in Tristan Bernays’s vigorous and earthy playOutside the House of Commons stands one of the few London statues of a wom…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:24AMKing’s theatre; Church Hill theatre; Traverse, EdinburghA six-hour Alan Ayckbourn epic is outdone by some tiny model figures, a true-life transgender tale and two marooned women with a sec…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:04AMTrafalgar Studios, LondonA caustic Channing battles gamely to save Alexi Kaye Campbell’s cliched family bust-upStockard Channing gives a good withering. It’s hard to tell whether her phy…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMFinborough; Royal Court, London Cicely Hamilton’s forgotten feminist drama hits home, while John Tiffany delivers rage and vaudeville in a bravura revival of Jim Cartwright’s RoadHistory…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:12AMOld Vic; Dorfman; Apollo, LondonConor McPherson weaves magic with Bob Dylan’s songs, Olivias Colman and Williams ignite Lucy Kirkwood’s new play, and Sienna Miller’s Cat fails to sizzl…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMRegent’s Park Open Air theatre, LondonA Tale of Two Cities mashup nearly does for Dickens in a rare flop at Regent’s ParkEvery couple of years someone writes a column saying how she has …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMRoyal Court, LondonVivienne Franzmann examines the economics and human cost of surrogacy in this thought-provoking dramaVivienne Franzmann has made her name with dramas – Mogadishu, The Wi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMMuseum of Science and Technology; Royal Exchange; Home; Mayfield, Manchester A captive audience is ruffled in immersive refugee drama The Welcoming Party. Elsewhere, powerful tales of sons a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:12AMCentenary Building, Salford A doomed attempt to mix disaster survival and party games gets the otherwise promising Manchester international festival off to a shaky startJohn McGrath, foundin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:42AMLondon Palladium A technical hitch gave rise to a welcome burst of spontaneity from Rufus Hound as Mr Toad in this otherwise tame tale of wildlife“Poop, poop”, as Toad so aptly puts it. …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:42AMDonmar Warehouse, London Sandra Marvin is imperious as Camila Batmanghelidjh but this verbatim reconstruction needs more vimJosie Rourke keeps pushing at the Donmar. All-female Shakespeares.…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:42AMWyndham’s, LondonA bad gig for the jazz legend is a great one for McDonald as she embodies the troubled singer one wild night in PhiladelphiaLady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill supplie…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMOrange Tree, RichmondBranden Jacobs-Jenkins’s ingenious reworking of a 19th-century slave drama continues an exceptional new lease of life at this tiny theatreWhat Paul Miller has done at …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMAlmeida, LondonCarvel is a natural as the media mogul in James Graham’s engrossing play charting the rise of the Sun newspaperIs Ink indelible? Not really. Is it the talk of the theatrical…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMMinerva, ChichesterNearly 60 years after Edna O’Brien’s novel outraged the establishment, the gallivanting girls are as vital as ever in this skilled stage versionWhen Edna O’Brien pub…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AMRoyal Court, LondonAlice Birch’s riveting play, expertly directed by Katie Mitchell, examines how devastating sadness can seep through generations of womenWhen sadness runs through a famil…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AMFestival theatre, ChichesterJonathan Kent summons arresting moments from Tennessee Williams’s drama but can’t fully rescue a play that fails to meld personal and politicalTennessee Willi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AMDorfman, LondonAn African world full of anecdote and argument is conjured up at the barber’sIsn’t this what all playwrights would wish for? To come across in their daily lives a dramatic…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:42AMOlivier, LondonWords fail everyone in a play about the loss of common land in the early 1800sHow has this to pass come? Lower down explain will why like this I write. DC Moore author of good…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:42AMThe Observer's theatre critic chooses the 10 sets that changed the face of modern theatre, from a 1912 Hamlet to Punchdrunk's immersive Faust Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:48AM