Ibsen's pitiless take on the 'life lie' is another triumph for Norwegians in Notting Hill “I think this is all very strange,” declares 14-year-old Hedvig Ekdal at the end of The Wild Duc…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:54AMOperettaish bitter-sweetness raised to the sublime in a miracle of perfect timing Jerry Herman is the king of pep. Way too much of it in the first 20 minutes of the recent revue Je…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:02AMThree talented performers in a revue that doesn’t add up to much Catchy even when the lyrics are at their cheesiest, the Jerry Herman Songbook serves up a string of memorable tunes: you’…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:36AMSophie Treadwell's 1928 hard hitter gets full musical and choreographic treatment Virtuosity and a wildly beating heart are compatible in Richard Jones’s finely calibrated production of Re…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:24AMTHISISPOPBABY serves up a joyous tapestry of Ireland contemporary and traditional In what feels like the beginning, or at least the Old Testament, there was Riverdance. Now, ready to flow th…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 09:48AMFrancesca Mills' protagonist is the vivacious, truthful heart of this fascinating production “All discord without this circumference,” the Duchess of Malfi tells the good man she’s jus…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:32AMReal-life triangle around the composer’s darkest masterpiece yields fitfully strong drama David Hemmings was, by his own later admission, a knowing and bumptious boy when Britten cast him …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:36AMFive heroic women and two instrumentalists go Hellenic, with panache This is the show that launched a thousand puns, mostly ancient-Greek-oriented, and just as many corny rhymes, all deliver…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:36AMPatsy Ferran's vibrant Eliza Doolittle sparks Bertie Carvel's Henry Higgins into human life Many of us have perhaps grown too accustomed to the friendly face of My Fair Lady. George Bernard …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:25AMTeatro delle Albe's Don Quixote drama rivals Riccardo Muti's Paths of Friendship concert Came for the music, returned for the theatre. I oversimplify: Riccardo Muti’s Roads of Friendship e…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:13PMSiobhán McSweeney goes way beyond the expected in a transfixing performance Siobhán McSweeney is to be loved as a person for her speech when she received a BAFTA for Best Female Performanc…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:07AMCathy Belton’s devastating economy steers Mark O’Rowe’s quietly stunning Ibsen Church and law are enemies of promise in Ibsen’s tragedy-without-catharis. You can see why this devasta…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:06AMA suitably phantasmagoical vision in strong teamwork by Calderón's compatriots Dream versus reality, fate and free will, love and death, nature versus nurture: they’re all here in Calder�…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:12AMWhite-heat Strindberg from Norwegian actors undeterred by technical hitches You don’t have to be Scandinavian to act out Strindberg’s fantastical extremes at the highest level, but I’v…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:01AMEnda Walsh's second drama on now about ritualised isolation is mesmerising Commuting between London and Dublin has its fascinations.10 days ago, I saw for the first time at the Southwark Pla…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:40AMFour spot-on performances confirm that Enda Walsh's queasy thriller is here to stay The farce in question is fast and furious, but not often hilariously funny; that’s because it’s the in…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:44AMJustin Vivian Bond and Anthony Roth Costanzo in an absolutely fabulous double act You know you’re in good company the minute these two appear on stage: they are so splendidly what they are…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:55AMMasha Gessen, Shostakovich and Shakespeare’s Prospero wrestle order from chaos Essay-writing can be a great art, at least when executed by Hubert Butler of Kilkenny, on a par - whether you…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:25AMCompletion of the city’s big Dante project with 'Paradiso' is only one of three wonders For once, a festival theme has meaning. “Tra la carne e il cielo”, “Between flesh and heaven�…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:54AMBarry McGovern is odyssey master, while fine performers sag under awful script A pot plant on a stand, two tables with glasses of water, two chairs – one plush, one high – are all the pr…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:24AMHappiest in home-territory epics, Ivo van Hove pulls off a Greek-tragedy stunner Hunger for the gruesome horrors and euphoric highs of Greek tragedy seems to be stronger than ever. Yet when …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:42AMGood in parts, but Kit Harington’s king isn’t the best thing about this hard-working show Sharp suits swapped for combat fatigues, a people’s commander: you’d think that Max Webster�…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 12:18PMIbsen anticipates Beckett in his strange final play, austerely staged with dashes of wit In Ibsen's last and shortest play, further cut here, four people nominally climb a mountain, but actu…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:33AMSkiing-resort trauma is played too much for easy laughs It sounds like the title of a play by Rattigan. No such luck: “Force Majeure” – a legal term with which all too few will be fami…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:24AMJessie Buckley and Eddie Redmayne constantly surprise in multilayered production Turning a theatre into the Kit Kat Club, Berlin, early 1930s, is nothing new: the Edinburgh University Theatr…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:54PMNear the end of her long journey, our refugee gets a welcome her real-life kin are denied “I want to tell her that people will be good,” Tewodros Aregawe of Phosphoros Theatre confided t…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:03AMBand and singers energise the brilliant entertainment of Bernstein, Comden and Green It’s a wonderful thing to hear a nine-piece Broadway-style band at full pelt, and to see real show danc…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:32AMLisa Dwan’s infinite variety guides us through Beckett’s timeless masterpiece Just when you thought you couldn’t take any more one- or two-handers, online or in the theatre, along come…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:54AMMonica Dolan and Lesley Manville are peerless in this Alan Bennett double bill Monologues and duets rule the stage right now. We can only dream of the day when theatre steps up to the classi…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:18AMIvo van Hove engages British and Dutch actors to debate the urgent question of 2019 Are we really past all this? From Ivo van Hove's 2019 polyphony of opinions and reflections down the centu…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:54AMA host of Broadway stars varies the strain in classily done from-home gala Maybe you can't compare incomparables, but it was instructive to watch this Broadway lockdown gala feting nonagenar…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:42AM
