Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh; then touringMichel Tremblay's 1968 play is set in a working-class district of Montreal and written in the local French-Canadian dialect (called joual). Translated in…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMRoyal Exchange, ManchesterA 1977 BBC Play of the Month production first made me love William Wycherley's wickedly satirical comedy, written 15 years after Charles II returned from France in …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMOld Vic, BristolThis glorious Georgian theatre celebrates its phoenix-like resurrection from potential dereliction with a rumbustious production of John O'Keeffe's 1791 comedy about the prot…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMTheatre on the Fly, Festival theatre, ChichesterIn an interview last year, award-winning playwright Penelope Skinner (Eigengrau, The Village Bike) said her next work would be "set in a motor…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMMuseum Gardens, YorkThe gothic arched windows of St Mary's Abbey point to no roof but the sky. Like the Mystery plays, the abbey was suppressed during the Reformation of the 16th centur…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMCourtyard, Stratford-upon-AvonPart of the World Shakespeare festival, Iqbal Khan's production is set in a contemporary Delhi that probably bears as much relation to that city as did the Mess…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMStephen Joseph, ScarboroughFor his 76th play, Alan Ayckbourn transports his audience to a decades-distant future where children are rare, centenarians are common and time-travel is possible.…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMTheatre Royal, BathFollowing February's much-praised production of Goldsmith's 1773 She Stoops to Conquer at the National Theatre in London, Jamie Lloyd directs another classic 18th-century …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMTheatre on the Fly, Festival theatre, ChichesterWhen a grown man appeared on our TV screens in 1979, striding across a grassy field dressed in children's clothes, it was surprising. When the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMWest Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsThis is a musical of two halves: one major, the other minor. The first half is rocking, rollicking, poster-bright, high-energy fun. The goodies are good, the b…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMNumber One First Street, ManchesterManchester's Library Theatre Company lost its old home two years ago. Its new space is not yet ready. In the meantime, it must find places to perform. Some…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMTramway, GlasgowHundreds cheered and many stood to applaud National Theatre of Scotland's pre-press night performance. Six people walked out before the interval-less production reached its c…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMDukes, LancasterFour hundred years ago this August, 10 men and women were hanged on Lancaster Moor, the culmination of one of England's biggest witch trials. Twenty had been accused (16…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMRoyal & Derngate, NorthamptonMemories of last year's riots are fresh. Jubilee celebrations have begun. Olympic torchbearers draw nearer to London. The time is right to run a set of play…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMCrucible, SheffieldHarold Pinter's 1978 play is both deeply personal and disquietingly universal. Its ostensible subject matter is the staple of bourgeois drama: publisher Robert (Colin Tier…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMPatti Pavilion, SwanseaThere's a lovely reading on YouTube of Dylan Thomas's short story Just Like Little Dogs. The text unfurls on the screen as the voice of – I think – Anthony Hopkins…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMHull Truck, HullIn Ivan Viripaev's play, four performers in their 30s take turns to narrate the stories of two elderly and long-married couples. They begin at the ends of the lives and shutt…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMRoyal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonBefore the house lights went down, two men climbed on to the stage and began to sing. Their voices wavered, harmony faltered; they exited audito…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMRoyal Lyceum, EdinburghDC Jackson's comic drama of sexual and financial shenanigans among Edinburgh's banking elite relies heavily on its two sources: Beaumarchais's 1784 comedy The Marriage…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMThe Curve, LeicesterAs the brass and percussion strike the opening bars, period posters, their colours bleached to shades of grey, descend from the flies. The most prominent pictures a happy…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:01PMCrucible, Sheffield"This is not art, it's mathematics!" complains Simon Wilson's exasperated architect in Michael Frayn's Benefactors, as he struggles to square daylight regulations with the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMMen still dominate the big jobs in performing arts. And I have noticed, shockingly, that female theatre students are still prone to cede to male classmates. But is change finally coming?In h…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:43AMLiverpool PlayhouseIn a week when leading playwrights accused the subsidised theatres of preferring familiar fare to challenging work, Gemma Bodinetz, artistic director of the Liverpool Play…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMWest Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsIn his understated way, Ian Brown has done tremendous things during his decade as artistic director at West Yorkshire Playhouse. His departure later this summe…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMWest Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsMiss Hannigan, the orphanage overseer from hell, tantalises her charges with hope: "Today, you're not getting hot mush"; then dashes it with vicious glee: "You…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMTheatre Royal, York; and touringSex between a 12-year-old girl and a fortysomething man. This is the subject of David Harrower's 2005 play, explored through a dialogue between the pair meeti…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMHull Truck, HullThe poster (weirdly featuring an image of a faceless young woman wearing nothing but her underwear and sheathed in see-through plastic) proclaims in big letters: "Yerma by Fe…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMRoyal Exchange, Manchester In a 2004 Guardian article celebrating CP Taylor's "unique contribution to British theatre", his fellow playwright, the late Alan Plater, described Good as "a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMDerby theatre, DerbyThe jewel-like precision of David Wood's adaptation is immediately apparent: LP Hartley's oft-quoted opening line to his 1953 novel is subtly but significantly altered. "…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMLiverpool PlayhouseThe gangster Alberto Ui is a connoisseur of violence; just like his real-life counterpart, Adolf Hitler. Bertolt Brecht's play charts the rise to power of both. Fictional …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMLowry, SalfordLike East Is East (his 1990s stage and screen hit), Ayub Khan-Din's latest work is set in his native Salford. A large, rumbustious family is again at the heart of his story. Al…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PM
