Sunday, February 28, 2016
Southwark Playhouse, LondonKathryn Hunter plays the lovelorn French nobleman in this all-female production, but nothing is gained by the gender swapWhat is the point of an all-female Cyrano …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:38AMDorfman, LondonIt may be too gruesome much for some, but Sarah Kane’s 1998 horror show feels depleted in Katie Mitchell’s protracted revivalTheatres love people walking out. Sometimes it…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:38AMSunday, February 21, 2016
Almeida, LondonUncle Vanya is snapped into focus in a fine-tuned new version by the remarkable writer-director Robert IckeRobert Icke has been giving the British stage electric shocks for th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:27AMNoël Coward, LondonAn adorable heroine played by Emma Williams and a fine score from George Fenton and Simon Chamberlain are the only saving graces hereThere are two reasons for seeing Mrs …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:27AMApollo, LondonGemma Arterton’s megawatt charm lights up Jessica Swale’s brocaded romp-comArguments about the theatre are being put into period costume. Many of these arguments are accusa…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:27AMSunday, February 7, 2016
Garrick, LondonLolita Chakrabarti’s powerful play about the 19th-century African American actor Ira Aldridge is now where it should be…In 1833 the African American actor Ira Aldridge too…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:19AMOld Vic, LondonFiennes gives lustre to Ibsen’s preposterous autobiographical tale of an ageing architect battling irrelevanceYou may catch Ralph Fiennes in an obscure play; never in an ins…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:19AMLyttelton, LondonSharon D Clarke as the ‘mother of the blues’ leads a superb cast in Dominic Cooke’s knockout productionWhat are the great American plays of the late 20th and early 21s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:19AMSunday, January 31, 2016
Lyric Hammersmith, London Young Max Gill is terrific in a new production of Simon Stephens’s meditation on bullyingSean Holmes has pulled off a terrific smash and grab on Herons. His produ…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:39AMRoyal Court, LondonThe hit team behind Pomona turn Anna Jordan’s gritty play into something specialTwo years ago Ned Bennett (director), Georgia Lowe (designer) and Polly Bennett (movement…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:39AMRoyal Court, LondonChurchill’s magnificent new play unleashes an intricate, elliptical, acutely female view of the apocalypseSo which is the best moment in Caryl Churchill’s sizzling new…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:39AMSunday, January 24, 2016
The company whose huge mechanical elephant triumphed last year is using puppets in the shopfronts of Nantes to tell more tall talesLa Révolte des Mannequins Shop windows, Nantes, Fran…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:43AMSam Wanamaker Playhouse, LondonThe border between Ellen and Eileen is permeable in Atkins’s extraordinary one-woman show“Sixty-three and on one-night stands.” Ellen Terry, the loved Vi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:33AMSunday, January 17, 2016
Battersea Arts Centre, LondonA traumatised war veteran gets out of his box – and into it – in a vivid new play by two-man company RidiculusmusIt is one of the best of phoenix stories. La…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:39AMSoho theatre, LondonA genial Rob Newman rubbishes theories about the brain in his mindful new showSometimes I wish the word “comedy” were abolished. I can’t be the only person who tens…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:39AMSunday, January 10, 2016
Southwark Playhouse, LondonJackie K’s aunt and cousin are joyfully on song in a tale of Long Island squalor and co-dependency, while a fine new Pericles rules the wavesIt is the theatrical…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:34AMLittle Angel, LondonThree puppet animals excel as window cleaners in this visually ingenious production of Roald Dahl’s paean to sweetsSurely the obesity police will soon be summoned to th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:34AMSam Wanamaker Playhouse, LondonShakespeare’s tale of incest and hazardous sea crossings resonates powerfully in Dominic Dromgoole’s intimate stagingIt is unnerving to see Pericles these …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:34AMSunday, December 27, 2015
Olivier, LondonDamon Albarn’s didactic musical has an interesting premise but fails to translate online curiosities into stage magicHard to believe but true. The most surprising moment in …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:49AMFound111, LondonAndrew Scott, Joanna Vanderham and David Dawson excel in a riveting true-life play about obsessive sibling hoardersFound111 is proving to be an inspiring dramatic place. Firs…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:49AMLyric Hammersmith, LondonA tight script, beguiling design and Converse trainers instead of glass slippers make this Cinders a winnerThe Lyric’s Cinderella is its own mixture of saucy and s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:49AMSunday, December 20, 2015
Liverpool PlayhouseAnthony Neilson’s enjoyable production doesn’t fully translate Shirley Jackson’s astonishing prose into stage actionThe Haunting of Hill House is a play spooked by a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:02AMOld Vic, LondonYou’ll want to save the trees, hug the fish and bellow rude rhymes in this buoyant, fully environmentalist musicalThe timing could not be better. In the week of agreement in…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:02AMDonmar Warehouse, LondonMcTeer revels in the role of the cruel Marquise in Josie Rourke’s staging, opposite Dominic West’s curiously languid partner-in-crimeLes Liaisons Dangereuses is o…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:02AMSunday, December 13, 2015
Cheers all round for a resounding chorus of Greek tragedies, marathon performances, the return of Martin McDonagh and show-making female designersObserver critics’ reviews of the year in f…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:54AMYoung Vic, LondonShakespeare’s most exciting play is hampered by too much visual distractionIn the last three years the Young Vic has become a dramatic nut-cracker. It has continually pris…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:42AMNoël Coward, LondonJim Broadbent can’t help but exude cheer as Dickens’s curmudgeon in a sparkling if shambolic take on the seasonal classicThere is an extraordinary moment towards the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:42AMOld Vic, BristolSally Cookson splices the traditional story with a Romany folk tale, reverses the genders, and introduces a flock of sheepThe trouble with the Sleeping Beauty, remarked Angel…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:42AMSunday, December 6, 2015
Lyttelton, LondonCharacters discuss their own demise and flickering moments are captured in this short, idiosyncratic work by Caryl ChurchillNearly 20 years ago, the RSC put on a collection …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:37AMMenier Chocolate Factory, LondonSmith redefines ‘funny’ as Broadway pizzazz feels the pinch in the Menier’s fastest-selling show everOh, what a double-take can do. When Sheridan Smith�…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:37AMRoyal Court, LondonPenelope Skinner’s play about the invisibility of older women is fierce and rousing, and certainly doesn’t suffer from the loss of original lead Kim CattrallIt is not …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:37AM 
