Monday, October 5, 2015
Dementia is an increasingly common theme in theatre, television and film. But although there are plenty of stories about old people suffering from Alzheimer’s, what does it feel like to ex…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:56PMSaturday, October 3, 2015
Titles don’t come much more evocative than this: Valhalla, the gigantic hall in Odin’s Asgard where those slain in battle come to feast, is the Norse mythological version of the Islamist…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:22PMTuesday, September 22, 2015
Writer Anthony Horowitz is a busy man. Having written more than 40 books, he has also worked in many media. One year, he’s penning another series of the ever-popular Foyle’s War; the nex…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:55PMMonday, September 21, 2015
The actor and historian Ian Kelly is fascinated by the way that performers use the theatre to understand not only themselves, but also the world. In this new play, he looks at the life and c…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:54PMFriday, September 18, 2015
Welcome back Martin McDonagh. It’s been more than 10 years since you’ve had a play on in London, and I was beginning to think that we had lost you to Broadway, and Hollywood, for ever. A…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:06PMWednesday, September 16, 2015
With the election of lefty outsider Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour leadership, are we entering a new era when upsets and surprises have become a new way of life? Is it really true that anything…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:54PMWednesday, September 9, 2015
When is a monologue not quite a monologue? When it is interrupted by another voice, one that contradicts and argues with it. In Cordelia Lynn’s Lela & Co, her Royal Court debut (which …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:37PMTuesday, September 1, 2015
We all know what the word “addict” means, but what does it feel like to be one? Thirtysomething Emma — a minor actress played with immense conviction and quirky charm by Denise Gough �…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:22PMFriday, August 7, 2015
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not been very prominent in the news recently, but that doesn’t mean that it has gone away. As Julia Pascal’s 2003 play reminds us, religious and ethn…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:19PMTuesday, August 4, 2015
On contemporary stages, absence is a constant presence. This is very odd if you consider how corporeal and concrete theatre is. Unlike film, which is just light shining on a screen, or books…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:27PMTuesday, July 28, 2015
The trouble with the classics is that they are long, complex and difficult. But today’s sensibility favours the quick, simple and easy. So it is no surprise that the National Theatre have …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:38PMThursday, July 23, 2015
Theatre is one of the glories of British culture, a melting pot of creativity and innovation. Beginning with the coronation of Elizabeth I and ending with the televised crowning of the curre…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:14AMWednesday, July 8, 2015
In the age of austerity, it’s getting harder and harder to avoid cliché. Especially well-meaning cliché. For example, all cuts to welfare are bad; we must defend government support of th…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:56PMTuesday, July 7, 2015
The reason that Caryl Churchill is Britain’s best living playwright is that her work is endlessly enquiring and peerlessly intelligent. When she wrote this play about the subject of human …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:42PMTuesday, June 16, 2015
One of the most talented playwrights to emerge in 2000s, debbie tucker green is a law unto herself. The best word to describe her is uncompromising. When I interviewed her in 2003 she refuse…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:15PMMonday, June 8, 2015
Titles can be warnings as well as come-ons. In Gary Owen’s new play about a teenager growing up in the Welsh Valleys, it’s not difficult to guess what the main theme of the play is. Stum…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:38PMFriday, June 5, 2015
Few cities have been so central to the European imagination as Berlin in the 20th century. At the centre of imperial power, then of Weimar, next the hub of Nazi Germany, then for some 50 yea…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:40PMWednesday, May 27, 2015
St Paul’s Cathedral is an icon of national identity. The building that rose up from the fire and smoke of the Blitz has also witnessed the funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965 and the roya…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:29PMFriday, May 8, 2015
Today, terrorism means killing as many innocent people as possible. Fear is created by completely random attacks. So that no one feels safe. But there was a time, in the past, when political…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:30PMThursday, May 7, 2015
Thank fuck, it’s over. I mean the General Election. No more campaigning, no more leader debates, no more anti-Miliband hysteria. But there’s still no end to theatre gimmicks that exploit…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:30PMMonday, May 4, 2015
Recent plays with the verb “to care” in their titles — another is Michael Wynne’s Who Cares — suggests that the inequalities of life in Britain today can no longer be treated with …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PMWednesday, April 29, 2015
Tamasha is a new writing theatre company, which specialises in plays — often adaptations or reimaginings of classics — written from an Asian perspective. As the company celebrates its 25…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PMThursday, April 23, 2015
The trouble with the general election is that while everybody talks about money, nobody talks about ideas. We know the price of everything, but the value of nothing. This might seem to be a …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PMMonday, April 20, 2015
The NHS is us. Early in this new verbatim play about the National Health Service, one of the characters says that when a sample of Britons was recently asked what the most important institut…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:27AMFriday, April 17, 2015
Playwright Simons Stephens has made a long journey. Starting off as a young in-yer-face writer, then pausing to mellow over slices of life, then winning awards with state-of-the-nation famil…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:31PMTuesday, April 14, 2015
The Royal Court has had a makeover. Recently, the walls have had a fresh coat of paint and huge messages have appeared on them: the front doors now say, “Come In”. (Oh, thanks for tellin…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PMThursday, April 9, 2015
Some dramas begin with a brilliant idea. April De Angelis’s new black comedy, After Electra, is one of these. It starts with an audacious premise: the octogenarian artist Virgie is celebra…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PMThursday, April 2, 2015
Despite the age of austerity, London theatre is booming. Not just the West End, but Off-West End and the fringe as well. One sign of its health is its openness to Continental imports, especi…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:31PMTuesday, March 24, 2015
The seasonal family reunion play is a hardy perennial. Like the Christmas tree that must take its place on the stage, it is usually spiky, dry and decorated with glittering ornaments — as …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:01PMSaturday, March 21, 2015
Hey, it’s the 1990s — yet again. After high-profile revivals of contemporary classics — such as Patrick Marber’s Closer and Kevin Elyot’s My Night with Reg — from that edgy decad…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PMTuesday, March 17, 2015
Nowadays, playwrights do their apprenticeships at university, studying drama. But, once upon a time, they had proper jobs before they started making theatre. Such is the case of the late Mic…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:07PM 
