Gig theatre piece about the pain and redemption of a pioneer reggae artist I live in Brixton, south London. To get to the tube, I have to cross Windrush Square. Since 2021, I go past the Ch…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:36PM[SHARE]New play about a paedophile ring foregrounds the voices of British-Pakistani women British theatre excels in presenting social issues: at its best, it shines a bright light on the controver…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:31PM[SHARE]This venue's annual festive classic is seasonally joyous, but its writing is frankly patronizing This Dickens classic is an annual treat, or a Christmas trial " depending on your point of v…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:42PM[SHARE]New play about young black men and cryptocurrency is sadly predictable Cryptocurrency is like the myth of El Dorado " a promised land made of fool's gold. Despite its liberatory potential, …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:12PM[SHARE]The latest in Forced Entertainment's 40 years of experiment is a thought-tickling farce Can experimental theatre survive the decades? This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Forced Enter…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:12PM[SHARE]Hanif Kureishi classic gets a compulsively comic makeover from Emma Rice Hanif Kureishi's 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia begins like this: "My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:24PM[SHARE]Richard Bean's new work play revisits the Hull fishing industry of the 1970s "Don't take a piss in the house of a woman you have made a widow." The mixture of earthy comedy and tragic pain i…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:36PM[SHARE]Lorraine Hansberry classic is both a historical gem and a play for today Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is not only the first play by a black woman to premiere on Broadway, back i…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:02PM[SHARE]New play about the consequences of a plane hijack is energetic but unconvincing Air travel is bad for us. Yes, yes, I know we need planes to take us long distances, but look at the downside…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:32PM[SHARE]Two all-time 1950s classics, 'Look Back in Anger' and 'Roots', get super revivals by young directors Why should we not look back in anger? With the Oasis reunion tour in the news recently, …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:06PM[SHARE]Tanika Gupta's new play is a beautifully heartfelt mix of comedy and tragedy Queenie is in trouble. Bad trouble. For about a year now, this 68-year-old Indian woman has been forgetful. Losi…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:06PM[SHARE]Brilliant revival of this key absurdist play stars Lucian Msamati and Ben Whishaw Modernism is us. Today. For the past two decades plays by Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter " which once upo…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:32AM[SHARE]Slender new play about political and gender prejudice in 1950s American science British theatre has a proud heritage of science plays. From 1990s classics such as Tom Stoppard's Arcadia (199…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:48PM[SHARE]Waleed Akhtar's new play is about platonic love in a contemporary context Platonic love should be simple " basically you're best mates. And without the complications of sex, what could go w…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:32PM[SHARE]Award-winning new writing is full of mystery and metaphor, but a bit too literary I live in Brixton, south London; in my street, for many years, a pair of trainers were up in the sky, hangin…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:54PM[SHARE]Debut two-hander explores a gentle love story of two practicing Muslims At one point, in John Fowles's 1977 novel The Magus, the guru character in the story compares sexuality before and af…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:18AM[SHARE]New play about the death of the most famous American woman of the Camelot era The death of Marilyn Monroe is a wet dream for conspiracy theorists. Like the assassination of JFK in the follo…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:54PM[SHARE]New play about secrets from the past is both funny and profound Following the huge success of Benedict Lombe's Shifters, which transfers soon to the West End, the Bush Theatre is riding hig…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:18PM[SHARE]New history play about football has a flawed second half Every day this week I'm watching a football match, and now " after April's production of Lydia Higman, Julia Grogan and Rachel Lemon'…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:36PM[SHARE]Dublin Fringe Festival hit from 2022 comes to London's main new writing theatre Faye is okay. Or, at least she says she's okay. But is she really? And, if she really is, like really okay, w…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:12PM[SHARE]Taboo-tickling comedy about both conceiving a baby and life as empty nesters "Welcome to motherhood, bitch!" By the time a character delivers this reality check, there have been plenty of la…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:54PM[SHARE]Katie Mitchell's staging of Maggie Nelson's bestseller is neither original nor beautiful When does creativity become mannered? When it's based on repetition, and repetition without developme…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:42PM[SHARE]Stephen Adly Guirgis's Pulitzer-Prize winner finally makes it to London It's often said that contemporary American playwrights are too polite, too afraid of giving offence. But this accusat…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:02PM[SHARE]New play-with-songs version of Dickens's 'Our Mutual Friend' is a panoramic Victori-noir "He do the police in different voices." If ever one phrase summed up a work of fiction, and the art …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:02PM[SHARE]Latest from American penman Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is less than the sum of its parts I've never been one for school reunions, but even if I had kept in touch with former classmates I think …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:42AM[SHARE]New comedy about masculinity and music is predictable and clumsy One island off the coast of Spain has more cultural oomph than all the rest put together. I'm talking about Ibiza, the sun-s…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:36PM[SHARE]New play about love and memory is exquisitely written and beautifully acted For the past ten years, Black-British playwrights have been in the vanguard of innovation in the form and content …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:36PM[SHARE]Lemn Sissay's adaptation of the Franz Kafka classic is just too wordy Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" is a novella whose cultural resonance has echoed loudly down the years. As a modernist me…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:36PM[SHARE]New play about three sisters is full of energy, but also a bit too populist for me The National Theatre is meant to represent the whole nation " and not just the metropolitan middle classes.…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:42PM[SHARE]London transfer for the Royal Shakespeare Company's riotous comedy Western At its best theatre is a seducer. It weaves a magic spell that can persuade you, perhaps against your better judge…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:54PM[SHARE]Forgotten play by the author of Tom & Viv is realistic, but lacks dramatic focus British Theatre abounds in forgotten writers. And in ones whose early work is too rarely revived. One su…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:48PM[SHARE]
