Monday, April 6, 2020
BBC film version of a Renaissance rape trial is powerfully resonant and completely relevant
Artemisia Gentileschi has definitely had a hard time. Although she was an outstanding Renaissance …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 12:03PMSaturday, April 4, 2020
NT Live version of this masterpiece of farce is now available for free
Armchair theatre-lovers rejoice. During the lockdown, the National Theatre is streaming a selection of its past hits fo…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 09:24AMMonday, March 30, 2020
Original Theatre’s tartan gothic thriller is complex but also a bit overwrought
With everyone in lockdown, observing physical if not social distancing, a story about isolation can have a …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:36PMWednesday, March 25, 2020
Brilliant lyrics from the young composer offer a definitive take on migration
Ever since I heard the quintessential prog rock group The Nice do a psychedelic instrumental version of “Ameri…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:03PMMonday, March 23, 2020
Theatre Uncut’s streamed play about social media and the woke generation is clear but slender
It’s only been a week since London’s West End went dark, and theatres closed all over the …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:42PMTuesday, March 10, 2020
Thoughtful revival of Coward classic has all the ingredients - except the laughs
Jennifer Saunders is a one-woman tickle machine. As her countless appearances in television shows such as Fre…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:18PMMonday, March 9, 2020
Slender new monologue about struggling middle-class womanhood
On my way to see this show, I see an urban fox. Before I can take a photo, it scrambles away. And I'm sure that, as it goes, it …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 09:54PMTuesday, March 3, 2020
Verbatim account of transatlantic deportation is an uneven mix of fact and farce
Since 2000, Esther Baker's Synergy Theatre Project has worked with prisoners, ex-offenders and young people a…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:18PMWednesday, February 19, 2020
Waiting for Godot meets Exodus in American drama about Black Lives Matter
The Black Lives Matter movement is such an important international protest that it is odd how few contemporary plays…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:54PMFriday, February 14, 2020
New debut play is a heartfelt account of the black lesbian experience
Queer people of colour face a double discrimination: racism and homophobia. Against this sickness of negation and stupid…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:12PMWednesday, February 12, 2020
Revival of Caryl Churchill's brief dystopic classic is vivid but unexceptional
Caryl Churchill, Britain's best living playwright, is enjoying a spate of high-profile revivals of her classic …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:54PMThursday, February 6, 2020
New monologue about rage, racism and national identity is simply magnificent
Is this an angry island? Although the British national character (if there is such a thing) has traditionally be…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:33PMTuesday, January 28, 2020
Excellent revival of Lucy Prebble's disturbing debut play about illegal desire
Your sweet tooth can get you into trouble. Lots of trouble. In this revival of Lucy Prebble's provocative debut…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:42PMThursday, January 23, 2020
Maxine Peake struggles to make the voice of reason heard in feminist history play
History plays should perform a delicate balancing act: they have to tell us something worth knowing about th…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 01:42AMTuesday, January 21, 2020
New play about female friendship is refreshingly original and dazzlingly exciting
Tonight, I discovered the gasp index. Or maybe just re-dicovered. The what? The gasp index. It's when you se…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:54PMThursday, January 16, 2020
New blood courses through the West End's longest-running musical
Do you hear the people sing? In recent months, you're more likely to have heard news stories about the longest running West …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:54PMMonday, December 16, 2019
Mike Bartlett's Christmas cracker goes with a bang - eventually
The prolific Mike Bartlett – from whose pen have leapt television series such as Doctor Foster and Press, as well as stage h…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:33PMWednesday, December 11, 2019
Family tragedy is emotionally powerful but incomplete and unsatisfying
The trouble with prejudice is that you can't control how other people see you. At the start of her career, playwright G…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:54PMSunday, December 8, 2019
Magnificent makeover of the French classic - a jaw-dropping success
Actor James McAvoy is much in demand: in the BBC's His Dark Materials he is busy saving a parallel world, while in the poe…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:33PMTuesday, December 3, 2019
New autobiographical play about night thoughts on bodies real and digital
Eve Leigh is an experimental playwright who has tackled difficult issues for more than a decade. Yet most members of…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:12PMTuesday, November 26, 2019
Director Bijan Sheibani turns playwright in a fine two-hander about family
Family dramas are a staple of British new writing, but as well as talking about our nearest and dearest, can they …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:36PMThursday, November 14, 2019
David Greig's much-lauded mountaineering story doesn't quite peak
Theatre can touch thousands of lives. But can it compete with the success of a bestselling book? First published in 1988, mo…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:36PMTuesday, November 5, 2019
Family drama is occasionally entertaining, but too dark for its own good
Actor Miriam Margolyes is a phenomenon. Not only has this Dickensian starred in high-profile shows both here and in A…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:54PMMonday, October 28, 2019
First Ed Thomas play for 15 years is a post-apocalyptic metaphor-fest
Memory involves places, people, things and words, especially words. This abstract proposition is given knotty life in We…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:03PMFriday, October 25, 2019
Jordan Tannahill's queering of Renaissance art is riotously vulgar and unapologetic
Botticelli is a household name, but who knows the true story behind his most famous painting? The painter'…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:36PMThursday, October 17, 2019
Alice Birch's new play prioritizes form over content, and is depressingly reactionary
Clean Break, the theatre company that specializes in working with women in the criminal justice system,…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:06PMTuesday, October 15, 2019
New lecture about British imperialism is energetically engaging, but rather slender
Sabrina Mahfouz is a British-Egyptian writer who has explored issues of Muslim and British identity in var…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 12:03AMFriday, October 11, 2019
Provocative one-man show about a stalker by stand-up comedian Richard Gadd is darkly exciting
True stories, even in a fictional form, have the power to grip you by the throat, furiously shak…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:36PMWednesday, October 2, 2019
Sharp revival of Peter Nichols's taboo-busting fantasia is magnificent
Playwright Peter Nichols died aged 92 last month, just before the opening of this starry West End revival of his most c…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:36PMThursday, September 26, 2019
Caryl Churchill's latest offering is wonderfully bright and incisively perceptive
At the age of 81, Caryl Churchill, Britain's greatest living playwright, is still going strong. Her latest i…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:06PMWednesday, September 25, 2019
Excellent acting in a play that tickles the senses by morphing from one genre to another
Are first ladies second-class citizens? Do they always have to stand behind their husbands? What are …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:24PM 
