Sunday, December 27, 2015
Lyric 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 03:37AMSunday, November 29, 2015
Trafalgar Studios, LondonHarold Pinter’s study of power and sex has lost none of its ferocityFor all the difference in idiom, you can see echoes of Ibsen in the ferocious power-and-sex pla…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:10AMAlmeida, LondonLydia Leonard excels in Ibsen’s masterly study of how unhappiness corrodesHenrik Ibsen is routinely described as the father of realism and the father of modern drama. It is …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:10AMTricycle, LondonPatrick Barlow follows up his hit adaptation of The 39 Steps with a pocket-sized interpretation of the 50s biblical film epicPatrick Barlow’s adaptation of The 39 Steps, at…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:10AMSunday, November 22, 2015
Shaftesbury, London This garish sleight-of-hand variety show would work better on the tellyOh, the difference there can be between magical and magic. The Illusionists is a sleight-of-hand va…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:12AMTemporary theatre, National Theatre, London Jon Klassen’s children’s story takes to the stage with just a touch of gore and much joyful audience participationI am not sure what my best b…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:12AMBarbican, LondonOliver Ford Davies as Chorus outshines Alex Hassell’s restrained Henry in Gregory Doran’s measured productionThere is a kind of conjuring in Gregory Doran’s production …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:12AMSunday, November 8, 2015
It's already a smash hit, but this telly-hyped Oliver! just reheats tired clichés that belong in the 1960sOliver!Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London WC2 Roaring TradeSoho, London Continu…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:54PMHampstead theatre, LondonRoger Allam and Nancy Carroll hit all the right notes in David Hare’s play about the founders of GlyndebourneThe soprano in David Hare’s new play has nothing of …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:06AMJW3, LondonLaz’s struggles with his wasting limbs are especially poignant in this adaptation by the late Christopher LeithThis year, the Suspense festival of puppetry has included an adapt…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:06AMOlivier, LondonPolly Findlay’s ingenious reimagining of Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy is a visual and aural delightAs You Like It? Absolutely. But not as it has been seen before. Polly F…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:06AMSunday, November 1, 2015
Dorfman, London Characters burst into vivid life in Marianne Elliott’s powerful evocation of DH Lawrence’s mining townTo make an audience feel it is watching not just one uncurling episo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMRoyal Court, London Troubling notes emerge on contemporary American life, complete with Hound Dog, pig shark and Thelma and LouiseRoosevElvis is the latest time-hopping, gender-mashing, genr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMOld Vic, LondonEugene O Neill’s 1922 anti-capitalist drama gains extra muscle from Bertie Carvel’s superb performance as the wounded, inarticulate stoker, YankAs manufacturing industry …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:24AMFriday, October 23, 2015
Chichester Festival theatreDavid Hare’s vibrant reboots of three early plays bring out the wilder side of ChekhovThis is a season of theatrical marathons. At Kingston, The Wars of the Rose…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:28AMTricycle theatre, LondonMarcus Gardley’s reworking of Molière’s Tartuffe has spark, but lacks driveTwo or three speeches in A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes have a rare sumptuousness, a lip-sm…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:28AMSunday, October 18, 2015
Young Vic, LondonA fast and furious staging of one of Shakespeare’s ‘problem’ plays retains a dark heart despite its comic toneThe opening scene of Joe Hill-Gibbins’s staging of Meas…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:41AMFormer Central St Martins School of Art, LondonThe Soho site of the Sex Pistols’ first gig provides the perfect venue for this storming revival of Barrie Keeffe’s trilogy on troubled you…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:41AMBristol Old VicA fiery new production of Arthur Miller’s masterpiece returns to the stage of its 1954 British premiereIn the centenary year of Arthur Miller’s birth, his play about the S…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:41AMSunday, October 11, 2015
Wyndham’s, LondonFlorian Zeller’s study of dementia continues to enthralHow could I have forgotten the kiss? I thought each skewering moment of The Father was indelibly registered. But t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:20AMRose theatre, Kingston upon ThamesTrevor Nunn’s staging of the RSC’s bold 1960s Shakespeare adaptation lacks the original’s daring, though there are some fine turns in the lead rolesWh…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:20AM 
