All stories by Tom Birchenough on BroadwayStars

Thursday, December 10, 2015

A Christmas Carol, Noël Coward Theatre by Tom Birchenough

Is Jim Broadbent Britain’s best-loved actor? The slate of screen roles he’s accumulated over the years – this Christmas Carol is his return to theatre after a decade away – has surel…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:46AM
Friday, December 4, 2015

Around the World in 80 Days, St James Theatre by Tom Birchenough

One of the joys about this stage adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days is the contrast between its phlegmatic hero Phileas Fogg, who deals with everything in terms of pre…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:31AM
Saturday, November 21, 2015

Flowering Cherry, Finborough Theatre by Tom Birchenough

In the world of rediscoveries, half a century may not be a long time. Slightly more, in fact, with Robert Bolt’s first performed stage play Flowering Cherry, which premiered in 1957 with R…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:54AM
Saturday, September 12, 2015

One Minute, The Vaults by Tom Birchenough

The repercussions of loss ripple inexorably through Simon Stephens’ 2003 play One Minute. Foreshadowing elements developed in his later work, it’s a testing piece that speaks most of all…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:33AM
Friday, August 21, 2015

Lady Anna: All At Sea, Park Theatre by Tom Birchenough

If you were expecting a fusty, formal adaptation of Anthony Trollope – and one of his least known novels, to boot – Lady Anna: All At Sea will come as a breath of fresh air. Colin Blumen…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:21PM
Thursday, August 6, 2015

The Heresy of Love, Shakespeare's Globe by Tom Birchenough

Helen Edmundson’s The Heresy of Love may be set in 17th century Mexico and follow the conflict between strict religion and personal development, but its theme of a woman denied her voice b…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:01PM
Saturday, July 11, 2015

Lesere, Jermyn Street Theatre by Tom Birchenough

There’s a clear territorial divide in the small space of the Jermyn Street Theatre at the opening of Ashley G Holloway’s Lesere. At the centre of Ellan Parry’s persuasive design there�…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:14AM
Saturday, March 28, 2015

The Three Lions, St James Theatre by Tom Birchenough

The devil gets the best lines. That may depend, of course, on whether we’re prepared to qualify David Cameron as the devil, but in William Gaminara's rapid-firing farce The Three Lions, th…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:07AM
Thursday, March 19, 2015

The Broken Heart, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse by Tom Birchenough

Jacobean playwright John Ford is flavour of the season at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. His better-known, and simply better, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, opened the venue’s new programme la…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:14AM
Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Playhouse Theatre by Tom Birchenough

It’s true that there is something wildly, garishly, theatrical about Pedro Almodóvar’s films – none more so than this rampant farce – but it’s equally true that their sensibility …

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:42AM
Thursday, December 4, 2014

3 Winters, National Theatre by Tom Birchenough

The single spacious room that is the central location of Tena Štivičić’s 3 Winters has seen plenty of ghosts. It’s part of an old Zagreb mansion, and through the course of the pl…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:25AM
Friday, October 10, 2014

Notes from Underground, Print Room by Tom Birchenough

“I am spiteful! I am ill! You are not going to like this!” With these words Harry Lloyd opens his one-man show that adapts the Dostoevsky 1864 novella that is often hailed as the first w…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:01AM
Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Fortune's Fool, Old Vic by Tom Birchenough

There’s cruel comedy and human drama aplenty in Fortune’s Fool, so much so that it’s hard sometimes to know whether we’re watching farce or tragedy. But it’s a mixture that works w…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:25AM
Tuesday, October 15, 2013

The Love Girl and the Innocent, Southwark Playhouse by Tom Birchenough

Southwark Playhouse's new production of The Love Girl and the Innocent is London’s first in over 30 years, and there’s a reason Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s play rarely reaches the stage: …

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:35AM
Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Preview: Solzhenitsyn's The Love Girl and the Innocent by Tom Birchenough

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was two years out of prison camp when he wrote The Love Girl and the Innocent. The experience of the eight years of hell that followed his sentence in July 1945 for an…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:27AM
Friday, September 6, 2013

Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Queen Elizabeth Hall by Tom Birchenough

It’s hard to imagine much upstaging Martyn Jacques, the indomitable falsetto frontman of the Tiger Lillies, but the gaping mouth of an enormous mythical fish that seems to have swum straig…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:00PM
Friday, June 7, 2013

The Tiger Lillies, Southbank Centre by Tom Birchenough

The last two years have seen the Tiger Lillies hit a prolific peak of activity, to be found as often on the theatrical as the concert stage, drawing on plenty of influences from outside the …

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:59AM
Thursday, April 18, 2013

The South Bank Show: Tim Minchin, Sky Arts by Tom Birchenough

The new South Bank Show has glided into its second season with a seemingly effortless profile of multi-hyphenate Tim Minchin. In case we’ve forgotten what exactly we admire him for these d…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:29PM
Sunday, December 16, 2012

Julien Cottereau: Imagine Toi, Purcell Room by Tom Birchenough

There’s something off stage, something loud and threatening, pulsating in dark red, at the beginning of Julien Cottereau’s solo mime piece Imagine Toi. This is a show of fears and sweetn…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:00PM
Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Globe to Globe: As You Like It, Shakespeare's Globe by Tom Birchenough

In the Globe to Globe season, the Caucasus is proving as fruitful a ground as any for new views on old texts. Georgia’s Marjanishvili company, under director Levan Tsuladze, proved the reg…

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:29AM
Saturday, May 19, 2012

Globe to Globe: King John by Tom Birchenough

You might have wondered if, when Armenia was offered King John as part of the Globe to Globe season, they felt they’d drawn the short straw. Not a bit of it.read more

SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:38AM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards