Royal Exchange, ManchesterHeavy-handed direction mars this prize-winning play about the challenges faced by young people at the bottom of the heapKatherine Soper’s Bruntwood prize-winning …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:51AMTown Hall theatre, GalwayMartin McDonagh’s bitter-humoured play of thwarted dreams is as powerful as ever, performed 20 years on by the company who premiered itIt looks at odds with itself…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:51AMSheffield CrucibleThe effect of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor slicing one another with lines as sharp as flensing knives in the 1966 film version of Edward Albee's 1962 play is still e…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:14AMStephen Joseph theatre, ScarboroughA playful cast brighten Alan Ayckbourn’s 1987 dystopian comedy, which stresses the value of other people to our livesAs playwright and director, Alan Ayc…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:36AMDundee Rep, and touringJohn McGrath’s influential play about the history of the Highlands lives up to expectationsTry as you might not to let it happen, there are times when personal preju…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:16AMLyceum, EdinburghLars Eidinger plays Shakespeare’s arch-villain with gleeful, knock-kneed energy in Thomas Ostermeier’s productionBernard Shaw famously compared Richard III to a Punch an…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:39AMAlmeida, LondonThe interests of a London ‘awareness-raising festival’ for the Congo and the realities of life there collide in Adam Brace’s intelligent and funny playWhen I first said …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:39AMKing’s theatre, EdinburghJames Thiérrée’s performance piece contains a glorious coup de théâtre but exists in a closed world without dramaWhat The Toad Knew and how or why he knew it…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:39AMMinerva, ChichesterJohn Galsworthy’s 1909 drama of industrial woes still resonates in a fine revival by debut director Bertie CarvelA sound montage of news items and politicians’ stateme…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:08AMGrosvenor Park Open Air theatre, Chester Theatrical joy and magic are summoned, but the caveman of Clive King’s novel is sadly dehumanisedMaybe it’s because it feels a bit like a circus …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:10AMYork Theatre RoyalThe classic detective mystery gets the Victorian music hall treatmentFor many years now, Damian Cruden has directed the merry anarchy that is the York panto (written by and…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:13AMChichester Festival theatreJulian Fellowes and Cameron Mackintosh’s reworking of HG Wells has the production values but lacks rounded charactersHit-makers Julian Fellowes (writer of Downto…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:01AMTheatre by the Lake, KeswickBroad 60s comedy and sharp millennial political drama share a venue as the Cumbrian rep company ends an eraIt began life in 1952 as a “Blue Box” – a mobile …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:49AMNew Wolsey theatre, IpswichShakespeare veteran Trevor Nunn finally tackles the Bard’s much-loved comedy – and in some styleA Midsummer Night’s Dream was the first Shakespeare play the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:45PMWilliamson Park, LancasterDespite some tinkering with the plot, this adaptation of Tolkien’s 1937 classic is ultimately rewardingSuddenly, two suns hang on the horizon, blazing, burnished …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:11AMRoyal Exchange, ManchesterSimon Bent’s adaptation of Howard Jacobson’s hilarious novel is charming and well acted but lacks dramaIn Howard Jacobson’s hilarious, award-winning, semi-aut…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:27AMNew Wolsey theatre, IpswichTrevor Nunn’s staging is triumphant, the acting finely judged, but the British Raj setting has some conceptual flawsA Midsummer Night’s Dream was the first Sha…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:16AMHome, ManchesterAnu recreates the 1996 IRA attack in Manchester as promenade theatre relying on audience imagination to fill in the gapsOn the stage of the main auditorium is a lorry, hazard…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:34AMYork Minster, York Mike Poulton’s adaptation of the medieval plays, performed for only the second time inside the Minster, mixes the mundane and the divine to sparkling effect“Why pick o…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:51AMBirmingham Repertory theatreThe second play from Bruntwood prize winner Gareth Farr breaks the silence around the struggle to conceive in an affecting wayJess describes the silence of absenc…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:52AMCrucible, SheffieldAn improbable new musical about a postwar London charlady in love with haute couture works like a charm, with a transcendent performance from Clare BurtGive yourself whole…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:46AMRoyal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonThere is something of the Edinburgh fringe about this RSC production of one of Shakespeare’s most complex playsWhat have we left of Shakespear…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:26AMTheatre Royal, BrightonSpymonkey clown around in an inventive production that turns Shakespeare’s complete works into a fabulous bloodbathThe Complete Deaths is a new show created by the c…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:26AMNorthern Stage, Newcastle upon TyneImprobable’s adaptation of Lauren Slater’s study of psychological experiments doesn’t quite make it off the page“Popular science has an element of …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:10AMBirmingham Rep Tom Wells’s play about three very different characters coming together through music has freshness, charm and warmthWinnie likes a Guinness on a Friday night (she’s Irish,…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:31AMCurve, LeicesterIshy Din’s first world war drama adeptly tackles class, race and colonialism through the moving story of Khudadad KhanKhudadad Khan was the first Asian soldier to be awarde…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:14AMCraig Taylor’s snapshots of everyday situations shouldn’t work as drama but they do – and brilliantlyDid you ever have to do that experiment at school where you watched crystals form i…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:14AMRoyal & Derngate, Northampton; Royal Exchange, ManchesterMichael Pennington’s powerful performance isn’t helped by the period trappings, but Don Warrington’s flummoxed king is a Le…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:58AMTheatre by the Lake, KeswickThis adaptation of James Rebanks’s bestselling memoir conveys its central relationships powerfullyThe thing about nature in the UK is, most of it isn’t natura…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:33AMWhen Sir Alan Ayckbourn says that "about 50% of the laughs" in his hysterically funny, heart-wrenchingly painful How the Other Half Loves are thanks to its "superimposed composite set", he's…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:34AMScottish Storytelling Centre, EdinburghIgnorance of Gaelic proves no barrier to enjoying this fine adaptation of Tormod Caimbeul’s seminal novelHave you ever seen a seagull by a cliff fly …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:14AM
