Friday, 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: The Arts Desk at 07:24AM[SHARE]Monday, May 3, 2021
Adrian Lukis proves himself far better at portraying Austen's rake than he is at writing him
It wasn't Jane Austen's subtlest move, naming her roguish soldier George Wickham. As countless G…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:33PM[SHARE]Saturday, April 3, 2021
Third instalment of the irreverent series takes on Boris, star signs, and casual sexism
"The crocus of hope is, er, poking through the frost." When he uttered that dodgy metaphor back in Feb…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:32AM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 24, 2021
The theatre's local community assembles a strange little show about the apocalypse
"Your task is to imagine the future." That's what the citizens of Assembly, a new streamed production perfo…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:03AM[SHARE]Thursday, February 25, 2021
Playful interactive show casts audience members as amateur detectives
I'll admit, I've never been a fan of murder mysteries. Patience is not one of my virtues; if I can't work something out…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:04AM[SHARE]Friday, February 12, 2021
Sian Clifford and Nikesh Patel do their best with a show that's as mercurial as grief
Good Grief, a new show from American screenwriter and playwright Lorien Haynes, can't work out what it …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:24AM[SHARE]Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Sharon D Clarke and Olivia Colman sparkle in delightful radio play in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital
The blurb for Peter Pan: The Audio Adventure, Shaun McKenna's new adaptation of JM …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:18AM[SHARE]Thursday, December 24, 2020
The Royal Court's experimental piece is political theatre at its finest and fiercest
Edition 2 of Living Newspaper: A Counter Narrative, an experimental new piece of online theatre from the …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:03PM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Gregory Doran's outdated vision of Greek myth is bolstered by five great performances
At just under five hours, Troy Story, the RSC's adaptation of as many tales from Greek myth, takes abou…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:54AM[SHARE]Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Scorching adaptation of Ovid is a welcome theatrical respite from lockdown
Women have an awful time of it in the Greek myths. Raped, abandoned, blamed for murdering people, blamed for not m…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:12AM[SHARE]Saturday, September 26, 2020
Socially-distanced dramedy is short and sweet, with a knockout performance from Remmie Milner
The first words of Sunnymead Court, a new play at the Tristan Bates Theatre, are ominous. "We a…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:36AM[SHARE]Monday, September 7, 2020
Real-life theatre bounces back with this lovely meander through grief and loneliness
A woman sits on a bench. She's got a song stuck in her head " she can't remember how one of the lines end…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:12AM[SHARE]Monday, August 17, 2020
Bonkers Zoom production is ideal for kids, but leaves adults wanting more
I have a confession to make: I don't like Alice in Wonderland. I know, I know, a lot of people disagree. I do apprec…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:54AM[SHARE]Friday, July 31, 2020
Polly Findlay's 2015 take on Shakespeare's trickiest comedy pays dividends
Ah, 2015. Those halcyon days of packed theatres. Thank God the RSC had the presence of mind to film Polly Findlay'…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:03AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 16, 2020
Updated Greek tragedy has some good ideas but doesn't fully deliver
Medea is the original crazy ex-girlfriend: the wronged woman who takes perfectly understandable revenge on the man who mad…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:48AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 2, 2020
Socially distanced version of Sebastian Faulks novel clips along at a fair pace
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks' best-selling First World War novel, has been adapted quite a few times in its twe…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:48AM[SHARE]Friday, June 26, 2020
Nicholas Hytner makes the familiar gloriously strange in this slippery, sumptuous show
Nicholas Hytner's A Midsummer Night's Dream, filmed for NT Live at the Bridge Theatre l…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:18AM[SHARE]Friday, June 19, 2020
Andrea Levy's Windrush epic bursts triumphantly onto the stage " and our screens
A British-Jamaican man is confused. It's the Second World War, and he signed up for the RAF on the understan…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:32AM[SHARE]Monday, May 11, 2020
A triumvirate of talent and a slick set can't in itself speed things along
Like an asp eating its own tail, the National Theatre's 2018 production of Antony and Cleopatra, streaming on YouT…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:42AM[SHARE]Wednesday, January 8, 2020
Quick-witted new play tackles a sibling bond in snapshots over 40 years
The Tyler sisters start as they mean to go on: bickering. Middle sister Gail (Bryony Hannah) has come home from uni t…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:12AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Award-winning play starring Tracy-Ann Oberman centred on the mother of a teenage rapist
Mother of Him was written a decade ago, but its most prescient moment happens in the first five minute…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:06AM[SHARE]Thursday, September 12, 2019
A mixed bag of performances from a big cast in Somerset Maugham's anti-war play
"I don't think I have the right to influence her," says an older character of her daughter in For Services R…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:33AM[SHARE]Thursday, April 4, 2019
Strong performances and snappy lines make this bleak drama sing
"We don't love you any less." A natural sentiment to express to your child when you're separating from your partner, but the v…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:00PM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Excellent performances aren't enough to cover the holes in this fictionalised account of the Rosenbergs
It's an ideal time to revive James Phillips' debut The Rubenstein Kiss. Since it won t…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:20AM[SHARE]Saturday, February 23, 2019
★★★★ EDEN, HAMPSTEAD THEATRE Thoughtful commentary on people and principles
Hannah Patterson's new play is based on a true story, but stands firmly on its own two fe…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, February 21, 2019
Last seen 40 years ago, James Saunders' four-hander never quite gets off the ground
Bodies is the latest in Two's Company's series of what they deem "forgotten masterworks", this one making…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:20AM[SHARE]Sunday, September 9, 2018
New all-female musical might not be entirely unexpected, but it's a solid enough evening There's a clear theme running through this year's autumn programme at the Southwark Playhouse: new…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:32PM[SHARE]Thursday, August 16, 2018
Great performances save this uneven tribute to a forgotten Elizabethan poet It feels like Michelle Terry's first summer season at the Globe has been building up to Emilia for a while now. Th…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:12PM[SHARE]Thursday, August 2, 2018
Claire van Kampen's production is big and bold, but her husband's Iago misses the mark Claire van Kampen has a history of providing roles for her husband, Mark Rylance. He starred …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:06AM[SHARE]Friday, April 13, 2018
Cuba Gooding Jr hardly rises, but his co-stars shine in a show stronger on wit than tunesChicago has been on, in one form or another, for a very long time.
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:38AM[SHARE]Thursday, March 22, 2018
Arinzé Kene writes and stars in a witty, hard-hitting play about race and culture in modern London Arinzé Kene is having a bit of a moment. He won an Evening Standard Film Award for The Pa…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:00PM[SHARE] 
