Chorleywood is a harmless little town in Hertfordshire, within striking distance of Watford. I feel sorry for its hapless residents, because Chorleywood is also notorious as the name of the …
SOURCE: John Morrison at 06:25AM'Rules of chivalry? Bollocks to that!' Henry V of England is offering a little advice to the newly minted James 1, King of Scots, as he returns from 18 years in captivity. James wants to lea…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 05:13PMI was left spellbound in 2012 by Cillian Murphy's amazing solo performance in Enda Walsh's Misterman, brought from the Galway Festival to the National Theatre. Ballyturk, another 90-minute p…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 01:27PMDo I like verbatim theatre? Up to a point, Lord Copper. As I wrote three years ago after seeing Alecky Blythe's London Road at the National Theatre, it's a genre that has its limitations. Wh…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 11:07AMOur first sight of Helen McCrory is of her brushing her teeth, coming out of a rather downmarket alcove with a sink dressed in khaki warrior trousers and a skinny top. The teeth-brushing is …
SOURCE: John Morrison at 01:14PMLynn Nottage's play at the Park Theatre, set in 1905 in New York, tells the fictionalised story of her great-grandmother. Esther is a dumpy African-American seamstress, living on her own in …
SOURCE: John Morrison at 05:44AMPeter Shaffer's plays pose a problem for directors and actors; his writing is extremely prescriptive, with detailed directions on movement, music, design and costume that leave anyone who re…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 06:30AMThe last time I saw Julius Caesar, it was an all-female version set in a prison. Dominic Dromgoole's version at the Globe contains no such radical turnarounds. The production uses what his p…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 02:41PMI usually run a mile from stage adaptations of films, with the exception of oddball productions such as Kneehigh's Brief Encounter and the ever-successful 39 Steps. But I always knew I would…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 05:23AMRichard Bean's plays are popular, funny and totally unrestrained by good taste or political correctness. If he was a newspaper, he would be a red-top. This is the key to his hilarious demoli…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 06:01AMKevin Mandry's play was recognised as an exceptional piece of writing when it was read at Player-Playwrights in 2013, winning the Best Play award. Now it has a full three-week production at …
SOURCE: John Morrison at 04:25AMTheatre, like football, can be a game of two halves. Polly Stenham's new play at the National Theatre Shed develops nicely for the first 40 minutes, then falls apart spectacularly. I will le…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 12:21PMI've seen lots of gripping productions at the Old Vic since Kevin Spacey took it over, and before. This revival of Arthur Miller's classic play by the South African director Yael Farber may …
SOURCE: John Morrison at 11:48AMSpoiler Alert: If you are a handsome young man with a £5 standing ticket for Antony and Cleopatra at the Globe, position yourself right at the front by the stage and you might get a scorchi…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 05:02AMA standing ovation at the end of a theatre performance doesn't happen that often, and when it does it often seems forced and ritualistic, as if the audience has been asked to stand by some i…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 06:40PMThis is the third play by up-and-coming young dramatist Nick Payne that I've seen, but I will think carefully before buying tickets for the fourth. I enjoyed Constellations, which featured t…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 06:59AMIf the last artistic boss of the Royal Shakespeare Company Michael Boyd was a bit of a Roundhead, then his successor Greg Doran is more of a cavalier -- by which I mean he adds meaningful de…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 05:04AMI sometimes go to the theatre to see if my long-held preferences and prejudices can be successfully dissolved by seeing a new production. Alan Ayckbourn has always struck me as an overrated …
SOURCE: John Morrison at 09:40AMJames Graham is an excellent writer who showed his gift for creating drama from unpromising material with This House, which revisited the 1970s House of Commons. His new play at the Donmar e…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 05:46AM'Mr Goold? Do come in. And you must be Mr Bartlett? Have you been to St James' Palace before?' 'We've never been invited.' 'How remiss of us. Of course, when the Lord Chamberlain's departmen…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 07:49AMUntil I saw Anya Reiss's version of The Seagull in 2012 I was firmly of the view that trying to Anglicise or update Chekhov was a VERY BAD IDEA. Could she work the same trick again with Thre…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 10:44AMPeter Gill has achieved the seemingly impossible with this new play at the Donmar. He has written a play about the first world war which fails to connect with the audience's emotions at all.…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 06:49AMO'Neill, Miller, Williams, Albee. More recently Tracy Letts with August, Osage County. There's a glorious line of American playwrights who have torn apart the myth of the all-American happy …
SOURCE: John Morrison at 06:07AMI sat in the pit last night, just behind the Grocer and his lovely lady wife, who gave me a grape. It was ten times funnier than the first time I saw it from the upper gallery, where I misse…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 12:03PMGretel and Ilse haven't a clue what's going on. With Russian artillery fire booming overhead, and their secretarial duties on hold, they sit in front of their typewriters in an airless concr…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 05:43AM'Tea, Father?' Like 'To be or not to be? That is the question' or 'Don't tell him, Pike!' there are some dramatic lines which are just impossible to forget. Mrs Doyle's repeated offers of te…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 07:22AMFlash bang wallop. Headlong, the theatre company which the Almeida's new artistic director Rupert Goold led for eight years until 2013, has a particular style which some people love and othe…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 09:44AMI was unsure what to expect from Shelagh Delaney's 1958 play, which I had never seen or read. I was blown away. It's a cracker, unbelievably ahead of its time in its characters and themes an…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 05:02AMThe new candle-lit Sam Wanamaker theatre at Shakespeare's Globe, London's newest stage venue, only opened its doors a few weeks ago, but its stunning success looks likely to spawn a host of …
SOURCE: John Morrison at 08:00AMDawn King's Foxfinder was a gem of a play which deserved a bigger audience than it got at its brief run at the Finborough in 2011. Her new play Ciphers displays many of the same intense qual…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 07:17AMSize matters in theatre. No, I’m not referring to Simon Russell Beale’s comfortable girth, but to the size of the Olivier theatre’s vast stage, which adds something unique to this scin…
SOURCE: John Morrison at 08:42AM
