Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Samantha Womack lurches valiantly through this scarcely credible crime drama
It may help if you love the book. It was a runaway bestseller, so fans must be legion, but a suspenseful story wh…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:18PMSaturday, July 13, 2019
As The Night of the Iguana opens, the actor renowned for playing dual roles talks Tennessee Williams, Pinter - and Wallis Simpson
Lia Williams is not an actor who looks for easy options. Twi…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:24PMThursday, May 16, 2019
Doubling, humour and an outstanding female Henry V
Henry IV Part One (***)
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:48AMThursday, May 9, 2019
Arthur Miller's tragedy from an African-American viewpoint
The Young Vic, a welcoming theatre with a culturally diverse audience, has been home to memorable Miller revivals before, notably I…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:42PMFriday, April 26, 2019
The Shadowlands playwright talks about C S Lewis, love, pain and being a writer
It is 30 years since Shadowlands, William Nicholson's much-loved play about C S Lewis's unexpected love affair…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:59PMMonday, March 25, 2019
Two-hander provides multifarious acting opportunities but insufficient focus
Obstetrician Dr Mary Barton had the best of intentions. As a missionary in India she had observed the poor treatm…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:45PMThursday, February 21, 2019
★★ TARTUFFE, NATIONAL THEATRE Morality-heavy version of the comedy classic
Brexit provides an unwelcome motor for John Donnelly's Molière-with-a-twist
Here's a recipe for a successful N…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 09:41PMSunday, February 17, 2019
A rediscovered early work by one of the giants of Twentieth Century theatre focuses on a woman's struggle for independenceRemembering meeting Harley Granville Barker when casting him as…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:42PMWednesday, November 28, 2018
Jacobean and contemporary justice collide in audience-involving dramaForget the cloak in the puddle. Never mind potatoes and tobacco. The children's book cliché of Sir Walter Raleigh (or Ra…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 09:36PMMonday, November 12, 2018
The director talks about Macbeth in the candle-lit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, cross-gender casting and the director's roleRobert Hastie is a little late for our meeting. Directing Shakesp…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:24AMThursday, November 8, 2018
RSC transfer presents a crowd-pleasing mix of metatheatrical comedy and music with, ultimately, a touch of melancholy Don Quixote and his paunchy sidekick long ago escaped the pages of Migue…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 09:36PMTuesday, October 23, 2018
Horror flick echoes fail to meet all the play's challengesIt has been said before: Macbeth's reputation for bad luck has more to do with the difficulty of bringing off a successful prod…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 09:06PMFriday, September 28, 2018
An ambitious celebratory series kicks off in fine fashionTen years after Pinter's death, Jamie Lloyd has set about honouring the Twentieth Century's outstanding British playwright in an ambi…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 12:04AMFriday, September 7, 2018
Didactic theatre piece stronger on facts than dramaThe title of Tony Harrison's teacherly entertainment - it can't be called a play - refers to the square bullets invented by James Puckle to…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:06PMFriday, August 3, 2018
Oscar Wilde's best-loved comedy with extra homo-erotic innuendoAny actor playing Lady Bracknell must dread the moment when she (or, indeed, he) has to deliver that unforgettable line ab…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 12:32AMThursday, July 26, 2018
Ian McKellen gives a towering performance as Shakespeare's capricious monarch Jonathan Munby's production, first seen last year in Chichester, reflects our everyday anxieties, emphasisi…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:36PMThursday, July 12, 2018
Earnest environmental messages underpin a celebratory, musically gleeful revival of Shakespeare's cross-dressing favouriteIt's been raining in Regent's Park. On a balmy summer evening d…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:42PMFriday, May 25, 2018
The boy who never grows up flies into the First World War This exuberant production both clarifies and further complicates the conundrum of Peter Pan. In any production true to Barrie there …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:32PMWednesday, April 4, 2018
Wycherley’s sexy comedy transplanted to the Roaring TwentiesEven in its successful early days Wycherley’s 1675 comedy was notorious, but it was considered too lewd to be staged at all be…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:30PMSunday, March 11, 2018
Emma Rice's lauded stage version of the film returns with charm and inventiveness intactIt would be so easy to make fun of the 1945 Noel Coward/ David Lean film in which, famously, noth…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:50PMEmma Rice's lauded version of the film returns with charm and inventiveness intactIt would be so easy to make fun of the 1945 Noel Coward/ David Lean film in which, famously, nothing ha…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:42AMMonday, February 12, 2018
Tom Stuchfield tells fascinating stories. They are jam-packed with detail: heroic, messy, bloody, romantic, humorous. Unfortunately, this rich material about a group
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 09:57AMTuesday, January 9, 2018
Sue Healy’s Imaginationship, previously staged as a reading at the Finborough, is expertly patterned. Events and characters, each embodying some aspect of
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 07:09AMWednesday, December 13, 2017
Here’s a clever invention: a ratnav. This gilded box both susses out vermin and bursts into song at the least hint: say
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 05:31AMMonday, December 4, 2017
Barrie’s grown-up fantasy gets a welcome centenary revivalConfused people, some of whom may have made the wrong choices in life and love, find themselves in an enchanted wood at Midsummer.…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:18PMWednesday, October 11, 2017
England’s patron saint travels through time to demonstrate changing views of heroismBold and fearless are adjectives that might describe playwright Rory Mullarkey as accurately as any chiv…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:48PMTuesday, October 10, 2017
Ibsen hits the Caribbean in The Lady from the Sea at the Donmar. Its star explainsNikki Amuka-Bird spent the summer in Antigua, swimming and scuba diving and could have claimed to be working…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:33AMMonday, September 11, 2017
You can’t go wrong with pirates. All that swash and buckle, big hats and treasure trove provide excellent ingredients for a show
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 12:54PMFriday, September 8, 2017
When the 24-year-old Peter Hall unleashed the first English language version of Waiting for Godot at this very theatre 62 years ago,
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 08:34AMThursday, August 31, 2017
The costumes in Colin Falconer’s design are paint-box bright – scarlet, lime green and bilious yellow. There should be no room for
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:56AMTuesday, August 29, 2017
There are French windows in Alex Marker’s splendid set, but they are not the kind through which someone is likely to burst
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 11:07AM 
