All articles by Michael Billington
The Mad King may bring more dynastic disputes and dotty despots to the RSC – but a ‘mayhap’ or a riddling aphorism does not a Shakespeare play makeAs a latecomer to Game of Thrones, I …
Gill’s dramas of divided class loyalties such as The York Realist had a clear-eyed precision matched by his rigorous work as a directorPeter Gill, playwright who turned ordinary lives into…
The actor’s sophisticated sense of humour and natural ability to make everyone laugh were there long before her famous sitcom rolesA life in picturesPenelope Keith: the most spectacular si…
Helen Hunt and Kristin Scott Thomas are leading revivals of the Russian classic whose blend of comedy and tragedy is baked into our own dramatic heritageWhat kind of play is The Cherry Orcha…
Plaque installed at actor’s former home in Pimlico, central London, where he lived from the age of five to 12Laurence Olivier has joined David Garrick, Henry Irving, Oscar Wilde and Noël …
Over his kaleidoscopic career, the great Shakespearean was a stalwart of the RSC, co-founded a ‘rock’n’roll’ theatre company and excelled at Chekhov and PinterMichael Pennington was …
From the Dome of Discovery to the massive cigar-shaped Skylon, the spectacular cultural showcase was an exhilarating sight in 1951. The Tories demolished those prime exhibits yet, 75 years o…
Antony and Cleopatra? Exhausting. Lear? Magnificent but flawed. Hamlet? Limitless. For Shakespeare’s birthday, the Guardian’s former theatre critic ranks all the plays***35 Continue read…
After the death of his husband, Antony Sher, the former RSC director embarks on a quest to see every First Folio
This is really two books in one. The first part consists of the diaries writt…
The great Italian entertainer's plays, such as Accidental Death of an Anarchist, have not lost their power to make audiences roar with laughter while confronting injustice
In Britain we tend…
Revivals of this history play usually reflect the politics of the moment. Now a fresh RSC retelling arrives in a world of instability and fractured alliances
I have long argued that Shakespe…
As the writer turns 80, his masterful adaptation of the French novel is being revived at the National Theatre. It highlights his lifelong interest in political power play
I once dubbed Chris…
The director, who has died aged 98, permanently changed the landscape of British theatre by creating the Young Vic " and it reflected his own energetic and ever innovative nature
Frank Dunl…
The Twelfth Night Reunion gathers some of the grandest names in British theatre, including Simon Callow and Stephen Fry, to explain why Shakespeare's play continues to bewitch audiences
Many…
Rattigan hoped his 1954 tale about a swindler who exploits his son's sexual allure would prove him a serious dramatist. Its scandalous story reveals much about the playwright and resonates f…
The self-described 'bounced Czech' created cerebral works centred by a core of genuine emotion " and always understood the ways of our world
All the best dramatists extend the frontiers of d…
Its 1981 New York premiere was a disaster but this told-in-reverse musical became a Tony award-winning hit with Daniel Radcliffe. The film version is a tear-jerking joy
I have made enough mi…
In his first hit play, now receiving another starry revival, the celebrated dramatist's analysis of the American psyche is steeped in European tradition
The British theatre's long love affai…
His parable of collective social responsibility is a hardy classic but the Yorkshire playwright's wider legacy should not be neglected
How on earth does one sum up JB Priestley? He wrote 39 …
The actor best known as TV's Sybil Fawlty dazzled over five decades on stage, in roles from from Shakespeare to Alan Bennett ' Fawlty Towers actor Prunella Scales dies at the age of 93
Prune…
When it opened in 1985, Les Mis got some rotten reviews. Forty years on, our writer sees it afresh and Cameron Mackintosh reflects on the show's spectacular success
So were we wrong? By "we"…
The versatile star, who has died aged 96, portrayed absurdly pretentious and apparently grotesque characters with wonderful sympathy
Patricia Routledge was an actor of uncommon versatility e…
Following in the footsteps of Peter Hall and Katie Mitchell, Indhu Rubasingham directs an ancient epic at the National Theatre. Bacchae reveals the virtues and vices of creating a new play f…
Harrison's poetry and plays made an electrifying connection with readers and audiences through his use of Leeds dialect, and his ear for rhyme. Writers remember his greatness
Poet, playwrigh…
The tragedy's mythic quality appeals to adapters the world over but the Japanese film-maker's Ran, now rereleased, manages to solve the play's problems
I have long had mixed feelings about K…
Vera; or, The Nihilists concerns a plot to kill a tsar but after Alexander II was assassinated, its London premiere was cancelled. Now receiving a rare production, it captures his conflict b…
The maverick behind Tom Holland's Romeo and Nicole Scherzinger's Sunset Boulevard is now stunning passersby with Rachel Zegler's Palladium balcony scene
Rarely can a balcony have caused such…
Moving easily between daring new work from the likes of Jez Butterworth to lucid fresh takes on the canon and heartful musicals, Cooke is an optimal new leader' Dominic Cooke appointed as th…
Actor, playwright and screenwriter who was a stalwart of the National Theatre under Laurence Olivier
The actor and writer Gawn Grainger, who has died aged 87, had an extraordinary career tha…
What's behind all the revivals of the shocking parable about terrifying McCarthyism in 1950s America? Our writer reflects on how, through the decades, each fresh production finds new meaning…
Faithfull's casting in Chekhov's Three Sisters in 1967 caused a perfect storm, yet she held her own against the vastly more experienced cast including Glenda Jackson. It was the start of man…
The Oscar winner stars in the German director's production of the Chekhov classic where 'everything is open to interpretation'
How does one stage Chekhov? His plays, embodying symphonic real…
The remarkable actor symbolised a radical new generation to her husband Laurence Olivier's theatrical establishment
' Joan Plowright, celebrated star of stage and screen, dies aged 95' Joan …
Sophocles' classic about the bitter pursuit of justice " now revived by Daniel Fish " reveals fresh truths each time
Why do we so rarely see Sophocles' Electra? John Burgess, in a guide to G…
The Nigerian Nobel laureate's story of a royal servant condemned to kill himself after his master's death has lost none of its enigmatic appeal
Sheffield is in luck. The Crucible theatre nex…
Our Evenings follows an actor through 60 years of treading the boards and holds up a mirror to how society has shapeshifted
Alan Hollinghurst's remarkable new novel, Our Evenings, is many th…
Having worked his magic as director of the Almeida theatre, the gifted Goold is bound for greater glories: the National had better watch out
Rupert Goold, as director, has made the Almeida t…
A radical new exhibition celebrates stars including Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart by combining subtly moving artworks with their own voices. The results are uncanny
Great actors have alw…
The Hollywood star is to appear at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in Shakespeare's late play about sorcery. But what is the secret to playing the great magician?
I have one thing in common with An…
With a remarkable knack of bringing history to life on stage and screen, West honed his craft with devotion and delight' Timothy West, star of stage, screen and television, dies aged 90' Tim…
The 1895 comedy has been staged with age-blind and all-male casts and even David Suchet as Lady Bracknell. Now reinvented again, at the National Theatre, the trick is to be seriously funny
I…
His gangster Hitler in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui turned him into a star but from his earliest roles the actor had an unforgettable expressive force
' Rossiter interviewed by the Guard…
I was 16 when I became obsessed with Look Back in Anger. Now, in a double bill with Roots at the Almeida, both dramas' eternal truths are clear
John Osborne and Arnold Wesker had a lot in co…
A £15m, four-storey space in Liverpool is to be dedicated to the man once known as Professor Yaffle Chuckabutty. Let's hope it will delve as deeply as he did into comedy's infinite variat…
West joined a starry cast for script-in-hand readings of Christopher Marlowe's complete works in Canterbury. The resulting films are frustrating
On paper, it sounds a fine idea: to film all …
As he hits an extraordinary landmark, the playwright relives his first drama, which made him £30, and recalls bouncing back from the stroke that left him desolate and devoid of ideas
It i…
Samuel Beckett's groundbreaking play is back again, this time starring Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati. Its tragicomic take on existence may match our cultural moment
Godot keeps on coming. A…
In hospitals around the UK, InterAct provides bespoke readings tailored to patients' tastes. Practitioners explain how they benefit too
In 2000, the theatre director Caroline Smith nursed he…
More than 250 works by 40 stage talents are on display in London for an impressively wide-ranging event that supports the Theatre Artists Fund
A couple of years ago, two fine actors, Nancy C…
A welcome glimpse of what is playing beyond Britain, this year's programme includes a deeply moving drama of migrant jeopardy and an intriguing Three Sisters
The Venice Biennale is always as…
