Sunday, November 17, 2019
Crucible, SheffieldSilence is both golden and frustrating in Charlotte Keatley’s play about four generations of women featuring deaf actors
Fingersmiths theatre company specialises in “w…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:18AMSunday, November 10, 2019
New Wolsey theatre, IpswichNewcomers Jim Barne and Kit Buchan have written a classic Christmas romance enhanced by confident production
“Even impossible dreams come true,” sings the wond…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:03AMSunday, November 3, 2019
Swan theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonHannah Khalil’s ambitious play, set in 1926 and 2006, struggles to dramatise questions of power and gender
A museum is a site of encounter between past and…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:36AMSunday, October 27, 2019
Paisley Arts CentreWinning performances deliver a heartbreaking and unsentimental tale about asbestos poisoning in the workplaceFrances Poet’s latest play is a condemnation of an atrocious…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:48AMSaturday, October 19, 2019
Byker Community Centre, Newcastle upon TyneThe audience is invited to attend a mock UK arms fair in this laudable but underdeveloped production
Travelling to Common Wealth and Northern Stage…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:48PMSunday, October 13, 2019
Stephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughOliver Emanuel’s Canadian log cabin drama goes nowhere slowly
’Tis a dark and snow-stormy night somewhere in Canada. After many years of separation, a …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:06AMSunday, October 6, 2019
Crucible, SheffieldBy rendering its hero completely passive, Steve Waters loses a key aspect of Giles Foden’s novelGiles Foden describes the narrator-hero of his 1998 multiple prize-winnin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:33AMSunday, September 29, 2019
Sherman theatre, CardiffWriting, acting and design combine brilliantly in Ed Thomas’s new, semi-autobiographical playJohn Daniel (Rhys Ifans) fears that daily wearing of his only pair of t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:54AMSunday, September 22, 2019
Crucible, SheffieldMatt Haig converses with his younger self in this engaging take on his memoir about depression
The novelist Matt Haig wrote his award-wining, bestselling 2015 memoir about…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:42AMSunday, September 8, 2019
Royal and Derngate, NorthamptonThis fine revival of August Wilson’s 1992 play finds seven people in 60s Pittsburgh struggling with a turbulent world
Double Pulitzer prize-winning writer Au…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:42AMSunday, September 1, 2019
Stephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughAlan Ayckbourn directs this excellent revival of his 1980 comedy of a family suffering a less than festive Christmas
Playwright Alan Ayckbourn remembers a …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:36AMSunday, August 25, 2019
Various venues, Derry and DonegalThe annual celebration of the work of Brian Friel carries powerful reminders of the work of building community
“Politics are so obtrusive here.” The grea…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:36AMSunday, August 18, 2019
Wharfhouse, Cropredy, OxfordshireMikron’s second world war show follows two female navy recruits as they battle the enemy and colleagues
“Theatre anywhere for everyone, by canal, river a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:33AMSunday, August 11, 2019
King’s theatre; Lyceum, Edinburgh; Minerva, ChichesterEnglish settlers terrorise Indigenous Australians in an unflinching production from Sydney; the aftermath of a homophobic killing is e…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:42AMSaturday, August 3, 2019
Theatre Royal Bath; Royal Exchange, Manchester; Passenger Shed, BristolRupert Everett’s astute direction of Chekhov results in a meeting of minds, and a luddite history is given a modern e…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:33AMSunday, July 28, 2019
Theatre by the Lake, KeswickLucy Kirkwood’s domestic-seeming drama has the steely underpinning of a Greek tragedy
A visitor arrives at a cottage by the sea – unexpected but not unknown. …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:48AMSunday, July 14, 2019
Crucible, SheffieldLolita Chakrabarti’s superbly acted adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker-winner makes dazzling use of its interplay of illusions
Everything about this production is amaz…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06AMSunday, July 7, 2019
Royal Exchange, ManchesterThe Hodgkiss award winner by 154 Collective finds complexity in a simple encounter between two people
Wrestling the Walrus is the winner of the latest Hodgkiss awar…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:36AMSunday, June 30, 2019
The Other Place, Stratford-upon-AvonRobin French’s new play mixes music, folklore and contemporary ideas to intriguing, if overlong effect
Into a house in a forest go a boy and a girl. Wol…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:12AMSunday, June 23, 2019
Theatre Royal BathJennifer Saunders stars as Madame Arcati in this touching production of the Coward classic
When Charles summons a psychic to perform a seance in his home so that he can obs…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:36AMSunday, June 16, 2019
Royal & Derngate, NorthamptonUnmissable performances save a creaky tale of differing approaches to God’s calling
Anthony McCarten, the Oscar-nominated writer of the Freddie Mercury bio…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:36AMSunday, June 9, 2019
Stephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughA role-swapping, multiple-version adaptation of Wilde’s novel is too tricksy for its own goodWhy “pictures”? Just as in Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novel, t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:54AMThursday, May 30, 2019
The MAC, BelfastWriter Rachel Trezise brings universality to the tale of a young Northern Irish woman travelling to Wales for a termination
“Any separate status for Northern Ireland from t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:42AMSunday, May 26, 2019
Royal Lyceum, EdinburghZinnie Harris’s narrow reworking of Webster’s revenge tragedy fails to persuade
Tom Piper’s design sets the keynote for the play: striking, efficient and almost …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:33AMSunday, May 19, 2019
Leeds PlayhouseA play set in 1964 about young mothers forced to give up their babies for adoption is as fresh as when first performed in 1998The action of Amanda Whittington’s bittersweet …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:03AMSunday, May 12, 2019
Birmingham Rep, and touringThe Rep’s Roxana Silbert bows out with an inventive staging of Ursula Rani Sarma’s adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s 2007 novel
“Every street of Kabul is ent…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:12AMSunday, May 5, 2019
Perth theatreMorna Young’s moving play about a journalist researching the life and death of her fisherman father is beautifully served by this fine production
Towards the back of the prosc…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:33AMSunday, April 21, 2019
Watermill theatre, NewburyClever staging and warm performances make this adaptation of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s film a visual treat
Last week’s fire at Notre Dame prompted various reflectio…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:00AMSunday, April 14, 2019
Theatre Royal, YorkImitating the Dog interrogate their own staging of the controversial novella as well as its themesJoseph Conrad’s 1899 novella tells of the steamboat journey undertaken …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:00AMSunday, April 7, 2019
Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal, BathPunchy characters, great pace, prizes… but something doesn’t work in this play about dysfunctional relatives
Claudio Tolcachir’s award-winning play, …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:00AMSunday, March 31, 2019
Royal Lyceum theatre, EdinburghBill Forsyth’s adaptation of his 1983 film, with new music by Mark Knopfler, is topical all over again
Bill Forsyth’s lighthearted story has a strong moral…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:00AM 
