Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Philippa Gregory’s first play tries to exonerate Richard III, with mixed results
History is very present in Philippa Gregory’s new play about Richard III. Literally - History is a charac…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:12AMSunday, November 19, 2023
A British-Indian family celebrate their first Diwali, with mixed results
“It’s nothing like Christmas,” Rachel (Amy-Leigh Hickman) hisses at her brother David (Kishore Walker). She’…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:02PMWednesday, June 7, 2023
Revival of Neil La Bute's ruthless 2001 drama let down by clumsy writing
It’s been more than 20 years since the premiere of The Shape of Things, Neil LaBute’s prickly drama about couples…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:49AMMonday, May 22, 2023
Modern touch-up of Joe DiPietro's seminal gay play is rollicking but lacking
“This audience is very diverse, isn’t it?” joked one of the audience members at Fucking Men at Waterloo Ea…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:06AMSaturday, February 25, 2023
Second instalment of urgent documentary drama condemns the system that let the tower burn
It’s been five years since 72 people died in the Grenfell Tower fire in West London. Five years an…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:33AMFriday, January 20, 2023
Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss's collaboration somehow forgets about the laughs
We all have that friend. The person you met on holiday and couldn’t shake off. You added each other on Facebo…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:42PMMonday, December 19, 2022
Hannah Khalil's playful retelling of the 1001 Nights puts women centre stage
Do you remember how the 1001 Nights ends? You know how it starts: Scheherazade has been married to a king who ki…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:06AMMonday, December 12, 2022
Backflipping newsboys take on press barons in this hyper-energised UK premiere of the Broadway hit
What do you mean you haven’t heard of the newsboys’ strike of 1899? It’s a classic Da…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:32AMThursday, October 13, 2022
David Tennant is a bone-chillingly affable Nazi in C P Taylor's uneven look at morality
“The bands came in 1933.” So begins C J Taylor’s Good, a play that tries its hardest to resist b…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:37AMMonday, October 10, 2022
Robert Icke's whip-smart adaptation puts identity politics on the dissection table
Robert Icke is an expert in corporate tragedy. I don’t mean that in a bad way - just that he has a pencha…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:25AMWednesday, May 25, 2022
Fraser Grace adapts a Russian story of love and survival in a world turned upside-down
When Bliss, a new play adapted from an Andrei Platonov short story by Fraser Grace, made its debut in R…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:48AMFriday, May 6, 2022
Pamela Carter’s slippery tale of a school trip to Nazi Germany explores the price of a stiff upper lip
“We all make history, one way or another.” But some of us make more history than…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:24AMMonday, April 18, 2022
With boisterous lyricism, Ryan Calais Cameron explores what it means to be a Black man
The title is so long that the Royal Court’s neon red lettering only renders the first three words, fo…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:36AMTuesday, March 22, 2022
1970s German classic skewers capitalism, but leaves emotional depths unplumbed
It’s not hard to see, watching Tom Fool at the Orange Tree Theatre, why Franz Xaver Kroetz is one of Germany…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:18AMTuesday, March 1, 2022
Award-winning hymn to Stephen Sondheim leans too heavily on in-jokes
Steven (David Ames) is having a birthday party. He’s invited his closest friends – two of whom have recently started …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:12AMThursday, February 24, 2022
Sonali Bhattacharyya's new play explores sisterly love and Islamophobia with warmth and wit
“You could read at home,” says Bettina (Anoushka Chadha), Year 10, her school uniform perfect…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:48AMFriday, February 11, 2022
Emma Rice's punk-rock reworking of the classic is brilliant - when it's good
“If you want romance,” the cast of Emma Rice’s new version of Wuthering Heights say in unison just after t…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:54AMTuesday, February 1, 2022
Aptly-named new play from Paul Anthony Morris shows the effects of racism on one man’s psyche
Conundrum is a tricky play. Written and directed by Paul Anthony Morris, founder of Crying in …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:18AMFriday, November 19, 2021
Zadie Smith's updated Chaucerian tale has a spring in its step and a twinkle in its eye
Zadie Smith might not be the only writer who can rhyme "tandem" with "galdem", but she’s the only o…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:54AMSaturday, November 6, 2021
Spellbinding adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel reminds us of the terror and beauty of childhood
This show has been a long time coming. Neil Gaiman had the first inklings of The Ocean at the…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:24AMThursday, November 4, 2021
Bombastic karaoke adaption of Jane Austen classic gives the spotlight to the servants
“We haven’t started yet!” Hannah-Jarrett Scott, dressed in Doc Martens under a 19th-century shift…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:42AMWednesday, October 20, 2021
Edited Inquiry transcripts expose the hypocrisy and incompetence behind the tragedy
Grenfell: Value Engineering isn’t actually a play. It’s an edited version of the testimony heard by t…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:18AMTuesday, October 19, 2021
Race and belonging are interrogated unevenly in this Australian drama
“Careful, there’s a hole in the floor.” The warning’s an unusual one, passed along conscientiously by the stewa…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:24AMSunday, October 3, 2021
Canadian writer Jordan Hall’s exploration of modern relationships provokes without fully satisfying
Despite its painfully relevant title, How To Survive An Apocalypse was written in 2016.…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:36PMTuesday, September 21, 2021
Strong performances and a gorgeous set just about save a lacklustre script
The Coronet Theatre is a beautiful space – it’s a listed Victorian building, and the bar’s like something out…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:18AMFriday, August 13, 2021
Kae Tempest’s urgent new adaptation of Sophocles puts women centre-stage
Philoctetes, Odysseus, Neoptolemus: the men’s names in Sophocles’ Philoctetes are all unnecessarily long and …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:54AMWednesday, August 11, 2021
Michelle Terry is gunning for a second Olivier with her first Viola
The greatest version of Twelfth Night is not called Twelfth Night. It is, of course, the 2006 masterpiece She’s the Man…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:03AMTuesday, July 20, 2021
Emma Corrin and Nabhaan Rizwan perk up one-dimensional drama about a Russian conwoman
There just isn’t enough there, with ANNA X. Daniel Raggett’s production is the third and final of th…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:54AMSaturday, July 17, 2021
The lighting's gorgeous, but Bryony Lavery's drama about theatre friendships never quite clicks
Last Easter has become a lot more relatable since it was forced to postpone this run at the Or…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:12AMThursday, July 8, 2021
Scott Karim soars in taut revival of Ayad Akhtar’s political thriller
A lot’s changed since Kiln Theatre boss Indhu Rubasingham directed The Invisible Hand’s first UK outing in 2016, …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:54AMFriday, July 2, 2021
Atim and Jeremiah flare bright, Wanamaker and Capaldi burn slow
A cosmologist and a beekeeper walk into a barbecue. Or a wedding. The beekeeper is in a relationship, or married, or just out…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:24AM 
