Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Lyric, Shaftesbury Avenue, LondonIf there were a checklist for what comprises great children's theatre, David Wood's adaptation of Judith Kerr's note-perfect picture book would tick a lot of…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:55PMMonday, July 16, 2012
Scoop, LondonAlmost everything about this dramatisation of the Trojan war is true to the spirit of ancient Greece: the uncomfortable seats, the imposing surroundings, the splicing of burlesq…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMFriday, July 13, 2012
Southwark Playhouse, LondonDirector Thom Southerland has a long history with Mack and Mabel: he worked on it first in 2005, as an assistant on a stripped-back production in Newbury that tran…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:38AMWednesday, May 30, 2012
Once home to nothing more innovative than A Midsummer Night's Dream, Regent's Park theatre is not only producing some of London's best musicals – it's beating the West End at its own gameA…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:04AMMonday, May 28, 2012
The writer and star of the groundbreaking show on the drag queen no one could resistHarvey Fierstein, playwrightAs soon as I started writing, other writers stopped wanting me acting in their…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:07PMTuesday, May 22, 2012
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonGrupo Galpão's rough-and-tumble production of Romeo and Juliet has been at the Globe before, 12 years ago, and you can see why the Brazilians were invited back. C…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:09AMWednesday, May 16, 2012
The play has split critics. But between rankled newspaper reviewers or enthusiastic bloggers, who is right?There are plays that divide critics, and then there is Three Kingdoms. Depending on…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:35AMMonday, May 7, 2012
Will the Smiths singer come to her Unhappy Birthday? Maddy Costa meets the woman who has turned her Smiths obsession into a play'Being a Morrissey fan is not the easiest thing in the world,"…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:30PMMonday, April 16, 2012
Shakespeare lived in a man's world – but the RSC is recasting his 'battle play' King John with women in the thick of the actionLike many 21st-century women, theatre director Maria Aberg do…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:29PMMonday, March 19, 2012
'The rehearsals were hysterical. Sometimes they just fell apart because it was so funny'Alan Ayckbourn, directorMy play Absurd Person Singular, now 40 years old, was a step in the direction …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:12PMTuesday, March 6, 2012
Michael Frayn has written journalism, novels, plays, a memoir – and he's still tapping farce's anarchic energy. He tells Maddy Costa why he loves a challengeMichael Frayn is momentarily pu…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:30PMTuesday, February 21, 2012
Fancy playing a banker or a murderer? Maddy Costa meets a company that has found a novel way of making audiences feel good about bad newsIt's a truism that what sets theatre apart from cinem…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:46PMMonday, January 23, 2012
Jaime Winstone and Russell Tovey are old friends, and about to co-star in a new play about a one-night stand. They talk to Maddy Costa Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:30PMTuesday, January 17, 2012
An exercise in misogyny – or a love story about a man liberating a woman? As the RSC stages The Taming of the Shrew, Maddy Costa asks actors and directors how they read the playA man acqui…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:30PMAn exercise in misogyny or a love story about a man liberating a woman? As the RSC stages The Taming of the Shrew, Maddy Costa asks actors and directors how they read the play Continue read…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:30PMFriday, November 11, 2011
Pit, LondonFor Romanian director Vlad Massaci, Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 film Festen is more than the tale of a family detonated by revelations of parental abuse: it's a metaphor for social a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:20AMTuesday, November 8, 2011
Southwark Playhouse, LondonThe problem directors of Middleton and Rowley's play face is how to fuse its parallel plots: the seething, seedy tragedy of Beatrice-Joanna and the three men she e…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:45PMMonday, November 7, 2011
They've blindfolded, betrayed and baffled audiences. Are the Belgian collective now taking immersive theatre a step too far?Alexander Devriendt was at a standup show with his girlfriend a co…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:44PMArts Theatre, LondonThose of a churlish disposition might describe A British Subject as a vanity project. The play details the dogged humanitarian efforts of actor Nichola McAuliffe and her …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PMFriday, November 4, 2011
Hackney Empire, LondonA child is on stage, its rigid body rocking as it speed-chants a poem. A man and woman are arguing about love, and a bored housewife is regretting her move to…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:25PMTuesday, October 18, 2011
Climate change, religious unrest, war in the Arab states – playwright Mike Bartlett likes nothing better than a big theme. He tells Maddy Costa why excess is his watchwordEvery piece of th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:00PMSunday, October 9, 2011
With its swearing and its baby-stoning, Saved shocked Britain in 1965. Will the play do so again? Maddy Costa talks to the original cast – and asks Edward Bond why he finally allowed a rev…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:31PMWednesday, September 28, 2011
He rattled audiences with plays about ghosts and devils. Now Conor McPherson has found new inspiration – in transcendental German philosophyTo say Conor McPherson is fascinated by the supe…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:00PMTuesday, September 6, 2011
Franz Ferdinand and a Bavarian puppeteer are shaking up The Tempest in The Isle is Full of Noises. Maddy Costa reportsAs rehearsals for The Tempest go, the scene in London's Sausage Studios …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:00PMFriday, September 2, 2011
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonIt's a mark of the chutzpah of playwright Chris Hannan, director Raz Shaw, and indeed everyone involved in The God of Soho, that the big song-and-dance number at t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMWednesday, July 27, 2011
Young Vic, LondonYou can scent the outcome of Martin McDonagh's 1996 debut play as surely as visitors to the home of Mag and Maureen Folan can smell pee in the kitchen sink. This tale of a c…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PMMonday, July 25, 2011
Arcola, LondonThe timing of this production from Ice & Fire, theatre's answer to Amnesty International, could hardly be more felicitous. While the phone-hacking scandal continues to dominate…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:25PMSunday, July 17, 2011
Edinburgh fringe veterans share their past experiences and highlight their picks for 2011Mark Ravenhill, playwrightIn 1987, I set fire to my venue. It rained all the time, so my clothes were…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:45PMMonday, June 27, 2011
He made his name playing troubled soldiers and driven detectives. Why has success left Damian Lewis so unsatisfied? He talks heroism and home life with Maddy CostaSubtlety and restraint ar…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:29PMTuesday, June 7, 2011
Director Chris Goode is opening a play next week. But he doesn't know what it's about. Or who's writing it. He explains all to Maddy CostaTheatre, as its makers like to emphasise, is a colla…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:59PMThursday, June 2, 2011
Arcola, LondonPublished in 1751 for distribution among London's lower orders, William Hogarth's illustrations of the Four Stages of Cruelty contained a blunt moral message: don't stick an ar…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:08PM 
