Rajiv Joseph’s play pitting beauty against duty gets an impressive staging It’s 1648 in Agra, and an excitable young guardsman has come up with an idea: a giant flying platform that he c…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:02AMA magnificent Adrien Brody leads a moving production by Justin Martin There is star casting, and there is casting the right star – not the same thing. The Donmar’s new production, The Fe…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:42AMZinnie Harris's modern take robs the play of its tragic potential John Webster’s sour, bloody tale of brotherly greed and vice has been updated by the playwright Zinnie Harris, who also di…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:54AMNathan Englander probes a divide in modern Jewish identity; Patrick Marber directs An incendiary play has opened at the Marylebone, the adventurous venue just off Baker Street. Bigger houses…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:32AMJosh Azouz and Kathryn Hunter concoct an uneasy mix of comedy and tragedy The writer-director Josh Azouz and actor-director Kathryn Hunter have collaborated on a piece exploring the ethics o…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:42AMDaisy Hall's astonishing debut is both darkly funny and deadly serious As hurricanes rip into the American Gulf states with increasing ferocity, eastern Europe disappears underwater and eve…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:36PMChanggeuk Company bring an epic poem quality to the familiar tale What do the cult TV show Squid Game and National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s Lear have in common? Oddly, a K-Pop producer…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:06PMPinero's play emerges fresh-minted in an exquisite production The stock of the late 19th century playwright Arthur Wing Pinero has just received a significant boost, thanks to the brilliant …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:12AMSpirited performances of Elvis Costello’s bland songs can’t save this new musical It’s hard to work out why Kwame-Kwei Armah chose to end his tenure at the Young Vic by directing this …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 12:06PMLyndsey Turner's fast-paced production doesn't let the audience engage with its hero The National’s new production of Coriolanus has to be one of the most handsome to appear on the Olivier…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:18AMTimberlake Wertenbaker's updated version takes particular aim at colonialism The latest Greatest Hit to land at the Lyric is Timberlake Wertenbaker’s 1988 award-winning play about a perfor…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:12AMA wealth of musical talent keeps this gig musical afloat The signs in the Peacock’s foyer warn that this show features "very loud music”. Exactly what Janis Joplin fans want to hear. Thi…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:36AMPatrick Barlow’s brand of silly still delivers a sly Hitchcock spoof Before the Plays That Went Wrong and the multi-role six-hander Operation Mincemeat, there was Patrick Barlow’s adapt…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:54AMRoy Williams and Clint Dyer's protagonists rage against the limits of their lives Two boys in east London, one Black, one white, grow up together, play pranks at school, then decades later h…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 09:44AMThe National's finely acted staging of Steinbeck's grim classic is a tough watch It’s a brave company that embarks on a staging of John Steinbeck’s award-winning 1939 novel The Grapes of…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:08AMMichael Bennett's 1975 hit has plenty of pizzazz but not enough emotional oomph A Chorus Line reigned supreme on Broadway from 1975 to 1990, a bold, bare-bones piece that for once put musica…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:54AMTimely arrival for Lucas Hnath's play about the cost of winning Before Lucas Hnath wrote Red Speedo, he had heard a 2004 speech at a hearing investigating baseball doping that declared the p…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:36AMNassim Soleimanpour's latest 'cold read' work is a unique experience The Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour is many things, some seemingly contradictory: a) a clever, poetic playwright w…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:02PMCardboard Citizens shine an unforgiving light on poverty in the UK A stark end-title at the end of this collection of short films sums up the dire situation the UK is in: one in five people,…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:06AMChristopher Hampton's love of Stefan Zweig's text becomes a drawback Who was Stefan Zweig? It's likely that it's mostly older folk who studied German literature at A-level who have encounter…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:48PMTwo awkward science nerds and a violent alcoholic father are oddly likeable company Sarah Power, the writer of Grud, now in the Hampstead’s smaller space, is a self-confessed geek who e…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:36PMA fine cast spell out the cost of survival in today's ailing industries For a long stretch of its first half, Dominique Morrisseau’s 2016 award-winner, Skeleton Crew, seems a conventional…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:32PMFans of the film will love it, but it's like being in a pink fever dream Nothing anybody over the age of 30 says about the new Mean Girls musical, spawn of Tina Fey’s witty script for the …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:48PMA production with a green message for younger audiences It's a bold move by Regent's Park Open Air Theatre to tackle Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's classic, a story that's been notably…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:54AM'Brush Up Your Shakespeare' brings the house down in a strongly cast lineup Lincoln Center’s Bartlett Sher is back in town to direct the Barbican’s latest summer blockbuster, Cole Porter…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:54AMAlice Childress's 1962 play about interracial love has lost none of its richness and fire Alice Childress’s Wedding Band has arrived at the Lyric Hammersmith like an incendiary bomb, a wea…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:42AMGiles Terera excels leading a livewire cast in an irreverent look at Black identity From New York’s Public Theater, the venue that nurtured Hamilton, comes another estimable pocket musical…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:32AMSuperb cast deliver Van Badham's anti-incel barbs and feminist wit with gusto What would happen if a notorious misogynist actually fell in love? With a glacial Danish librarian? And decided …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:12AMIan McKellen's Falstaff thrives in Robert Icke's entertaining remix of the Henry IV plays Shakespeare’s plays have ever been meat for masher-uppers, from the bowdlerising Victorians to the…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:12AMA five-women team spell out a feminist message with humour and strong singing Many an Edinburgh Fringe transfer has struggled when it moves to the big city, but the Dirty Hare company’s Gu…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 01:24AMIt's a great song and dance evening, but the story is an empty one In a secret chamber somewhere, the producers of MJ the Musical may be keeping a portrait of the King of Pop that has acqu…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:12AM
