Friday, November 1, 2024
Fringe venues perform a vital role on the ecology of London theatre. While many shows at these small venues are underfunded, and some are frankly rough as well as ready, you can occasionally…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 03:48PMSunday, October 20, 2024
The myth of Oedipus is so central to our psychic world that I was really surprised how many people in the audience for this revival were shocked by the revelation of the protagonist’s ince…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 02:04PMMonday, October 7, 2024
Roald Dahl evokes mixed feelings. He’s one of the greatest children’s storytellers, whose macabre books have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide; he was also anti-Semitic, and …
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 03:39PMThursday, September 12, 2024
Although the idea of deporting people to Rwanda as a punishment is now, following the defeat of the Tories in this year’s General Election, off the political agenda, the way we as a societ…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 11:57AMFriday, September 6, 2024
Adultery is the great staple of modern British playwriting. The anguish of marriage, and the temptations of infidelity run like a red thread from John Osborrne’s Look Back in Anger, via Ha…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 11:24AMMonday, June 10, 2024
Sanaz Toossi’s English at the Kiln Theatre: Pulitzer Prize-winning play shows the impacts of a second language on identity
The full version of the article Sanaz Toossi’s English at the …
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 03:34AMThursday, March 14, 2024
For me, this is the most emotional show on the London stage. Why’s that? Because it’s about Nye Bevan, who as Minister of Health in the postwar socialist Labour government set up the Nat…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 06:11PMWednesday, March 6, 2024
It’s election year so the gaze of British theatre turns towards the National Health Service. But, no, this month’s plays do not examine the parlous state of doctors and hospitals today, …
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 04:36AMMonday, March 4, 2024
We’ve all heard of the metaphorical madwoman in the attic, but what about the symbolic unexploded bomb under the roof, tucked away among the junk, accumulating dust and lying quietly undis…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 04:12PMMonday, February 26, 2024
It’s a sign of the times that German director Thomas Ostermeier’s West End debut is his production of An Enemy of the People, which has been rep at his Schaubühne theatre for over a dec…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 11:27AMWednesday, February 14, 2024
Nowadays it seems that it’s the fringe and Off-West End venues that are keeping the spirit of international theatre alive in London. Whereas much mainstream big-name theatre feels increasi…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 02:57AMSunday, February 11, 2024
In West End theatre, the cliché that nothing succeeds like success keeps the wheels of commerce turning merrily. But just because a show is selling lots of tickets, and has generated loads …
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 12:38AMWednesday, January 31, 2024
Jane Austen is not just a classic novelist — she’s a cultural institution and a national treasure. Since the 1990s there has been an avalanche not only of straight adaptations of her nov…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 07:07AMMonday, January 1, 2024
This transfer of Jack Thorne’s hit National Theatre play to the West End has been hailed as meta-theatre on steroids. The St Martin’s Lane venue, which was once called the New Theatre, h…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 07:10AMThursday, December 7, 2023
The recent news that Russia’s Supreme Court has banned the “international LGBT movement”, describing it as an “extremist organisation” and raiding nightclubs frequented by gay peop…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 12:11PMTuesday, October 3, 2023
Playwright Polly Stenham had a meteoric rise with this play, her award-winning 2007 debut which she wrote aged 19 and whose original Royal Court cast featured Lyndsay Duncan and Matt Smith,…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 07:32AMFriday, September 22, 2023
Androids no longer dream of electric sheep — instead they inhabit our dreams. Whether it is novels such as Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun or Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me, or films…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 01:19AMTuesday, September 19, 2023
Nobodies who kill somebodies: let’s make a list. Okay, there’s Lee Harvey Oswald (JFK), James Earl Ray (MLK) and Mark Chapman (John Lennon). But what about the man who shot Mahatma Gandh…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 03:52AMMonday, September 11, 2023
Remember what a first date feels like? Awkward. Exciting. Awkward. Intriguing. Awkward. Difficult. Yes, it’s a mixture of emotions, often between the desire to be liked and the frustration…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 11:15AMWednesday, September 6, 2023
Okay, let’s start with a definition: it is said that sex is what you have between your legs, and gender is what you have between your ears. Certainly, the emotional experience of falling i…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 04:02AMMonday, August 21, 2023
Success always opens doors. Ever since the HBO drama Succession was lauded as a huge international hit, one of its writers and producers, Lucy Prebble, has been a hot property. Although I pe…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 11:54AMFriday, August 4, 2023
Trauma is the source of identity politics. In the case of African-Americans, the experience of brutal slavery, exploitative colonialism and violent racism are defining experiences in their h…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 06:28AMThursday, July 6, 2023
Climate-change activist Greta Thunberg is great at doing two things: irritating complacent adults and inspiring idealistic teens. In Sarah Middleton’s debut comedy, Shewolves, which was fi…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 02:55PMMonday, July 3, 2023
James Graham’s Dear England at the National Theatre: Joseph Fiennes plays a mesmerizing soccer manager in this sport-of-the-nation drama
The full version of the article James Graham’s �…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 06:50AMSunday, June 11, 2023
Peter Morgan’s Patriots at the Noël Coward Theatre: award-winning story of Putin’s triumph is vivid but unreal
The full version of the article Peter Morgan’s Patriots At The Noël Co…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 04:11PMMonday, June 5, 2023
Can you enjoy a ghost story during summer? Usually the idea of a haunted house suggests images of dark winter nights, thunder and lightning, and howling wolves. These atmospheric factors are…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 05:04AMWednesday, May 3, 2023
Imagine yourself in a remote place: it could be a mountaintop, or a lost village, or the Amazon. These are the locations that Simon McBurney and his Complicité theater company take us to wi…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 10:06AMMonday, May 1, 2023
We are watching history being made: after decades of being in the shadows, queer drama is now singing and dancing into the mainstream. Theatre after theatre is staging stories about queer, t…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 02:10PMFriday, April 28, 2023
Is it possible to successfully challenge naturalism in British theatre today? At a time when audiences crave feelgood dramas, uplifting musicals and classic well-made plays, there is very li…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 05:44PMThursday, April 27, 2023
Brian Friel’s classic play about the blending of Paganism and Christianity in 1930s Ireland is more than 30 years old — and I remember seeing the original production from Dublin’s Abbe…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 10:23AMFriday, April 21, 2023
The popularity of plays that feature trauma is certainly a trend in British theatre today. But is this a good thing? On the one hand, staging stories of sexual assault might offer consolatio…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 06:06AM 
