Friday, May 10, 2019
The performer – who died this week – found fame as a musician and an impressionist, but could never escape a notorious Sun front page
The career of the comedian and singer Freddie Starr,…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:03PMFriday, May 3, 2019
Chichester Festival theatreQuestions of faith and loss drive a masterly story of the Narnia author in Rachel Kavanaugh’s deeply poignant production
The first three speeches of Shadowlands …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:18AMTuesday, April 30, 2019
Minerva, ChichesterJames Nesbitt and Sheila Hancock star in Tim Firth’s touching comedy about a dysfunctional group of relatives
Musicals head inexorably towards big ensemble numbers, a c…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:48AMMonday, April 29, 2019
London PalladiumThis chatshow canter through the career and comedy loves of Humphries proved he is an unrepentant controversialist
The television chatshow spread to theatre as a way of getti…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:48AMSunday, March 17, 2019
King’s Head, LondonSkilfully combining play-that-goes-wrong antics with a potted history of the royals, this has fringe festival hit written all over it
From the National Theatre of Brent …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:37AMTuesday, February 19, 2019
Theatre Royal Haymarket, LondonAmid the delightful comic dialogue, some of the musical numbers can feel like padding The smooth transition from dialogue to songs in musicals is the genre’s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:18PMMonday, February 18, 2019
His plays have shocked audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Is David Ireland bothered about the walk-outs? Will he give in to demands for trigger warnings?Cradling his grandchild for the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:32PMWednesday, February 6, 2019
The Lady From the Sea, a powerful drama about loss and longing, is being rehearsed at the very flat where Ibsen ended his years in exile. Our writer pops byOn Oslo’s Victoria Terrasse ther…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:54AMFriday, February 1, 2019
Provocative and political, the stand-up – who has died aged 57 – shook up Radio 4 at a time when it was in danger of resembling a Rotary Club quiz night Although generally excluded from …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:12AMTuesday, January 15, 2019
Theatre 503, LondonA catastrophic fact-checking error that nearly breaks the internet cues Osman Baig’s expressive and energetic one-man piece about digital journalismThe narrator-protagon…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:12AMSunday, December 16, 2018
Young Vic Theatre, LondonPaapa Essiedu and Black Panther’s Letitia Wright are captivating in Danai Gurira’s story of religious and linguistic colonialismEnglish-speaking missionaries in …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:24AMWednesday, December 12, 2018
Soho theatre, LondonNeil McCormick’s memoir about schoolmates-turned-rock stars is brought to raucous lifeThe story of a talented composer whose hopes of fame are broken when a local conte…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:18PMThursday, December 6, 2018
Menier Chocolate Factory, LondonWith antisemitism on the rise, Tevye’s struggles with the tsar’s thugs are powerfully topical in this note-perfect productionAlthough much-loved and often…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:24AMWednesday, November 21, 2018
Theatre Royal Plymouth A daughter inherits her dad’s diary and prized car in Carl Grose’s tightly plotted episode of farcical intrigueThe bequests and effects of the dead are reliably dr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:18PMMonday, October 8, 2018
The RSC’s revival of Edgar’s 1985 drama about leftwing politics coincides with David Hare’s latest study of the Labour partyTwo dramatists who share a generation and a first name – D…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:36AMTuesday, October 2, 2018
The Yard, LondonBrad Birch’s play has a protagonist sharing space with huge projected images in an exploration of information overloadAfter an upsetting conversation with her dad, data ana…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:18AMThursday, September 27, 2018
Watermill, NewburyThe ‘blasphemous’ 19th-century pamphleteer William Hone is at the sharp end of destructive libel action in Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s dramaIan Hislop and Nick Newma…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:18AMWednesday, September 19, 2018
Bristol Old VicDavid Greig finds humour amid the horror in this triumphant stage adaptation of the mountaineering memoirClimbing high mountains is often used as a metaphor for other ominousl…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12AMTuesday, August 14, 2018
From The Yalta Game to Living Quarters, the Irish playwright’s works have added resonance in this year’s FrielFestAlthough Ireland is famously cultured, it’s a shock to walk into a vil…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:06PMThursday, August 2, 2018
Almeida, LondonThis ingenious high-stakes show uncovers the psychology of those whose financial flutters shook the worldIn place of the Almeida theatre’s rows of tip-back seats are 10 semi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:06PMMonday, July 9, 2018
The Fawlty Towers star rails against the government, the BBC and British newspapers in stage appearance for Hacked OffIt was hard to know what to expect of a solo show by John Cleese, organi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:12PMMonday, June 4, 2018
A number of comedy classics are being reinterpreted for the stage as ‘joke-box’ musicals. Can they avoid the pitfalls of previous sitcom adaptations?Over the weekend, it has been reveale…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:12AMFriday, June 1, 2018
Star Audrey Fleurot and playwright Christopher Hampton talk about his reboot of the hard-hitting moral comedy set in post-Weinstein America“One of the marks of great plays,” says Christo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:54AMSaturday, May 19, 2018
Harry Hill and Steve Brown's show was staged too late – and felt conflicted. We were asked to laugh at the vacuousness of it all yet also care about the charactersWhereas the diaries of mu…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48PMSunday, May 13, 2018
This clever PG Wodehouse tribute reproduces the manners of the Edwardian English upper classes, while cunningly sending them up• Bertie Wooster or Jez from Peep Show? Take our quiz• Mark…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:54AMMonday, March 19, 2018
The Greek former finance minister talks about the lessons politicians could learn from Shakespeare, ahead of a lecture in LondonIs Theresa May Macbeth? Might King Lear agree with Jeremy Corb…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:00AMWednesday, March 14, 2018
In Francis Turnly’s trilogy one schoolgirl becomes a cat and another goes missing. The sheep farmer turned dramatist discusses The Great Wave, about North Koreans forced into prostitution�…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:00AMThursday, January 11, 2018
Rourke, who will leave the London theatre in 2019, staged perky experiments, rapid-fire responses and invigorating revivals. Who will take her place?When Josie Rourke leaves London’s Donma…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:02PMWednesday, January 10, 2018
He rides a racehorse, plays Arctic cricket and has already seen Hamilton. How will the new boss do at the DCMS – and will Ed Sheeran be invited to its Xmas party?In the BBC’s self-satire…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:33PMMonday, November 27, 2017
If Mr Burns, a provocative vision of post-apocalyptic America, has been slammed, it's because theatre critics know more about Homer than Homer Simpson. More fool them.One of the most tantali…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:33AMWednesday, November 1, 2017
Gate theatre, London Caoilfhionn Dunne portrays the physical and psychological decline of a reluctant mother of three in Magali Mougel’s chilling, visceral playIt looks as if a bomb has go…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:42PM 
