Friday, September 14, 2018
Deeply felt show about love, marriage and migration doesn’t quite work Director Madani Younis, who since 2011 has transformed the Bush Theatre in West London into one of London's most outs…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:18PMWednesday, September 12, 2018
Overwhelmingly powerful new play about motherhood and psychological collapse Blackout. Dark, the colour of childhood fear. Black, the colour of despair. Black. No light visible; no colours t…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:04PMMonday, September 10, 2018
The old Tricycle Theatre is transformed with a name change and a great opening playHoly shit! After being closed for two long years, the old and battered Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn has been…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:04PMThursday, August 9, 2018
Anti-naturalistic revival of Brian Friel's elegiac tribute to the Catholic nobility is oddly unemotionalChekhovian is a rather over-used word when it comes to describing some of the lat…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:04PMTuesday, August 7, 2018
New monologue about drug dealing on the Dark Web is well written if a bit slightThe Dark Web has an intriguing sound about it. Like something out of JRR Tolkein or JK Rowling, it suggests a …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:32PMThursday, July 19, 2018
Alan Bennett's black comedy is a howl against the privatization of deathThe NHS is us. For decades our national identity has been bandaged together with the idea, and reality, of a heal…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:04PMFriday, July 13, 2018
Female friendship comedy drama is occasionally bright, but lacks plot and depth Britain is rightly proud of its record on multiculturalism, but whenever cross-cultural couples are shown on f…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:42PMWednesday, July 4, 2018
The RSC’s adaptation of Robert Harris’s Cicero books reaches the West EndHistory repeats itself. This much we know. In the 1980s, under a Tory government obsessed with cuts, the big new …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:48PMThursday, June 28, 2018
Huge new play about the fertility industry is rather crudely conceived We are now pretty familiar with the idea that human reproduction (making babies) has been turned into big business, and…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:48PMWednesday, June 27, 2018
Smart and powerful new play about fear, terror and prejudice runs out of steamIt’s the stuff of nightmares. There’s a massive explosion, the sound of smashing glass, falling debris and p…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:32PMMonday, June 11, 2018
New comedy about a celebrity chef sometimes sizzles, but leaves a bad taste Forget about dark alleys, deserted parks and slippery slopes: the most dangerous place in the world is likely to b…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:32PMTuesday, June 5, 2018
Sympathetic new play about a migrant's death is well staged, but imperfectly writtenRegular air travel is a hassle. All that queuing, all that security, all those hot halls, and then th…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:04PMFriday, June 1, 2018
Frantic Assembly’s take on the crisis of masculinity is theatrically exciting but banalMasculinity, whether toxic or in crisis (but never ever problem-free), is a hardy perennial subject f…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:42PMTuesday, May 8, 2018
Sad and intimate play about rural life gets a bit lost in this large theatrePlaywright Barney Norris is as prolific as he is talented. Barely out of his twenties, he has written a series of …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:42PMWednesday, May 2, 2018
Joe ‘Sunny Afternoon’ Penhall’s triumphant new play about the music industry really rocksPlaywright Joe Penhall and the music biz? Well, they have history. When he was writing the book…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:54PMMonday, April 30, 2018
New comedy about a West-Indian wake is lively, but a bit undercookedThe good news about so-called black drama on British stages is that it has broken out of its gangland violence ghetto and …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:42PMThursday, April 26, 2018
Energetic revival of Rodney Ackland’s best play exposes many of its faults Rodney Ackland must be the most well-known forgotten man in postwar British theatre. His legend goes like this: A…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:54AMWednesday, April 25, 2018
New two-hander about sex is wise and funny, but fails to achieve a climax Playwright Anthony Neilson has always been fascinated by sex. I mean, who isn’t? But he has made it a central part…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:18PMSaturday, April 14, 2018
New sci-fi drama about suburban perfection lacks the necessary human touch There’s a whole universe which British theatre has yet to explore properly – it’s called the sci-fi imaginati…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:59PMTuesday, April 3, 2018
Documentary drama about the weather on the eve of D-Day is a successThere are few things more British than talking about the weather. What makes this play about a meteorologist interesting, …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:32PMThursday, March 22, 2018
Yorkshire hikers reclaim the English countryside - and their identitiesIn the same week that Arinzé Kene’s Misty, a play that passionately questions the clichés of plays about black Brit…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:01PMMonday, March 19, 2018
Brilliant, and epic, new thriller about Japanese citizens abducted by North KoreaYou could call it an absence of yellow. Until very recently British theatre has been pretty poor at represent…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:20PMTuesday, March 13, 2018
★★★★ HUMBLE BOY, ORANGE TREE Spirited revival of Charlotte Jones's 2001 hit buzzes with funSpirited revival of Charlotte Jones's 2001 hit buzzes with funGood programming is an a…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:20AMMonday, March 12, 2018
Spirited revival of Charlotte Jones's 2001 hit buzzes with funGood programming is an art, and Paul Miller – artistic director of the Orange Tree Theatre – is clearly on a continuous…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:20PMTuesday, March 6, 2018
★★★ THE BEST MAN, PLAYHOUSE THEATRE Martin Shaw and Maureen Lipman fail to heat up chilly political thrillerMartin Shaw and Maureen Lipman fail to heat up chilly political thriller Is …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:01PMMartin Shaw and Maureen Lipman fail to heat up chilly political thriller Is it possible to get too much of American politics? With Donald Trump’s daily tweets invading our digital space, a…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:01PMWednesday, February 21, 2018
★★★★ FROZEN, HAYMARKET THEATRE Suranne Jones, Jason Watkins and Nina Sosanya examine human darknessSuranne Jones, Jason Watkins and Nina Sosanya convincingly examine human darknessWh…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:45AMTuesday, February 20, 2018
Suranne Jones, Jason Watkins and Nina Sosanya convincingly examine human darknessWhatever the weather, this week is Frozen. On Broadway, the Disney musical of that name begins previews, but …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:59PMSaturday, February 17, 2018
★★★★ ANGRY, SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE Six monologues about extreme emotions offer trips to outer space and dystopiaSix monologues about extreme emotions offer trips to outer space and dyst…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:30AMFriday, February 16, 2018
Six monologues about extreme emotions offer trips to outer space and dystopiaMonologues are very much the flavour of the start of this theatrical year. At the Royal Court, we have Carey Mull…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:30PMDennis Kelly’s remarkable new monologue is a terrific experienceThis is Carey Mulligan week. She appears, improbably enough, as a hard-nosed cop in David Hare’s BBC thriller Collateral, …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:59AM 
