Thursday, April 25, 2019
Royal and Derngate, Northampton Mike Poulton’s new version lends fresh wit to the tragedy without diminishing its emotional intensity
A great Manchester Guardian critic, CE Montague, once …
Linked From The Guardian at 07:54AMTuesday, April 23, 2019
Old Vic, LondonIn an era of fake news and moral uncertainty, this fine production of Arthur Miller’s play rings as true as ever
Why the spate of Arthur Miller revivals? And why now? Watchi…
Linked From The Guardian at 07:06PMThursday, April 18, 2019
Donmar Warehouse, LondonJosie Rourke turns this spirited Broadway musical into a hymn to female resilience in her exhilarating farewell production at the Donmar
Anne-Marie Duff’s last appe…
Linked From The Guardian at 07:33AMWednesday, April 17, 2019
Almeida, LondonPatsy Ferran’s Olga is one of the many admirable performances in a production by Rebecca Frecknall that fails to deliver a full Chekhovian experience
When actor Patsy Ferran…
Linked From The Guardian at 08:18AMTuesday, April 16, 2019
Everyman, Liverpool Nick Bagnall’s ingenious revival reminds us that Sondheim’s musical thriller is also a savagely political piece about injustice
Forty years after its premiere, Stephe…
Linked From The Guardian at 07:18PMFriday, April 12, 2019
Bridge Theatre, London
Smith returns to the stage in triumph as she relives one woman’s extraordinary experience in Nazi Germany
Absent from the stage for 12 years, Maggie Smith returns in…
Linked From The Guardian at 10:04PMBarbican, LondonPart installation, part prose-poem, this strangely beautiful piece takes its audience into other people’s heads
Enda Walsh’s plays are often about people trapped inside f…
Linked From The Guardian at 12:06PMTuesday, April 9, 2019
Royal Court, LondonAbhishek Majumdar’s play launches a philosophical inquiry into non-violence and defying oppression
A special virtue attaches to playwrights who take us into unfamiliar t…
Linked From The Guardian at 06:12AMMonday, April 8, 2019
Park theatre, LondonAn English version of a play by golden boy of French theatre Alexis Michalik is too cavalier in its depiction of prison life
Alexis Michalik is the man of the moment. His…
Linked From The Guardian at 02:06AMFriday, April 5, 2019
Trafalgar Studios, LondonIn his funny and perceptive two-hander, Godber and his wife play a quarrelsome couple on a tandem trip to Europe
Although it dominates our lives, Brexit has so far m…
Linked From The Guardian at 02:30PMThursday, April 4, 2019
Lyttelton, LondonWith a boosted cast of 18, Lyndsey Turner’s revival of Caryl Churchill’s classic sometimes feels like three separate plays
What started as an economic necessity in 1982 …
Linked From The Guardian at 06:52AMWednesday, April 3, 2019
The Swan, Stratford-upon-AvonJohn Kani beautifully captures the complex divides of race, class and politics in a remarkable and moving new play
How do you put a nation’s history on stage? …
Linked From The Guardian at 06:30PMTuesday, April 2, 2019
Arcola, LondonThis lively musical take on the 2006 film satirising child beauty pageants is likable but lacks bite
I missed the 2006 film that is the source for this musical with songs by Wi…
Linked From The Guardian at 07:50AMSunday, March 31, 2019
Finborough, LondonBart and Alun Owen’s 1964 musical about a Liverpudlian dockside prostitute and her sailor beau gets a foot-stamping first professional revival
The working-class British m…
Linked From The Guardian at 10:01AMFriday, March 29, 2019
Barbican, LondonMurphy has an astonishing athleticism playing both man and crow in an adaptation of Max Porter’s story of grief
Cillian Murphy and Enda Walsh have teamed up to bring Max Po…
Linked From The Guardian at 09:24AMTuesday, March 26, 2019
Theatre 503, LondonRoss Willis’s surreal debut is driven by a concern for vulnerable children, but will be remembered for its two remarkable actors
Ross Willis’s debut play is subtitled …
Linked From The Guardian at 09:48AMFriday, March 22, 2019
Birmingham RepThis slapstick look at the classic play about Cyrano the long-nosed poet has been given a witty, kaleidoscopic staging
It is not hard to see why Alexis Michalik’s play has cl…
Linked From The Guardian at 08:03AMThursday, March 21, 2019
Dorfman, LondonFour sex offenders are confronted by one of their victims in Bruce Norris’s viscerally acted drama about punishment
Bruce Norris likes to live dangerously. In Clybourne Park…
Linked From The Guardian at 10:18AMWednesday, March 20, 2019
Menier Chocolate Factory, LondonPenelope Wilton gives a fine turn as an understated heroine in this revival of Hare’s play about a one-time pupil of Matisse
David Hare’s 1986 play was or…
Linked From The Guardian at 08:03AMTuesday, March 19, 2019
Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon Gender-swapped roles turn this courtship power game into a strange puzzle – although the trick plays dividends with its gleeful subplots
You…
Linked From The Guardian at 07:48PMWednesday, March 13, 2019
Harold Pinter Theatre, LondonTom Hiddleston is the big draw and is superb in conveying unhealed emotional wounds
After a brilliant season of Pinter’s short plays we now get his full-length…
Linked From The Guardian at 08:26PMTrafalgar Studios, London When positive discrimination appears to rob a boy of his college place, the racial pieties of America’s left are exposed in Joshua Harmon’s drama
Joshua Harmon …
Linked From The Guardian at 12:22PMMonday, March 11, 2019
Upstairs at the Gatehouse, LondonThe Gershwins’ upbeat music sits uneasily with a cheerily absurd script in this revival of George S Kaufman’s comedy
Satire, George S Kaufman said, is wh…
Linked From The Guardian at 08:24AMThursday, March 7, 2019
Adelphi, LondonBased on Adrienne Shelly’s film and scored by Sara Bareilles, the New York hit arrives in London in a lively production
Billed as the first Broadway musical with an all-fema…
Linked From The Guardian at 05:45PMSam Wanamaker Playhouse, LondonAdjoa Andoh is extraordinarily expressive in a production with politics to the fore that makes one see the play afresh
By casting an iconic English history pl…
Linked From The Guardian at 06:37AMWednesday, March 6, 2019
Bridge theatre, LondonJoanne Froggatt plays a lowly journalist who ascends into elite literary circles in Nicholas Hytner’s smooth production
Journalists enjoy seeing themselves depicted o…
Linked From The Guardian at 06:22AMThursday, February 28, 2019
The Vaults, LondonThis viscerally powerful piece about the 2014 revolution divides the audience into protesters and observers
Originally conceived by Mark and Marichka Marczyk, this piece of…
Linked From The Guardian at 05:39AMWednesday, February 27, 2019
Kiln, London Fear and fleeting joy punctuate an exploration of family dynamics, charting the upheaval of divorce and adolescence
Florian Zeller’s remarkable play completes a trilogy that v…
Linked From The Guardian at 07:44AMSunday, February 24, 2019
Theatre Royal Stratford East, LondonNed Bennett brilliantly directs the landmark 1973 play about a teenager who has blinded horses
I’ve often complained about the move towards a directors…
Linked From The Guardian at 07:05PMTuesday, February 19, 2019
Southwark Playhouse, LondonJames Saunders’ impeccably performed 70s piece takes on big issues as two couples swap partners and explore the poetry of painDedicated to retrieving forgotten p…
Linked From The Guardian at 10:32AMMonday, February 18, 2019
Phoenix theatre, LondonThis musical about plane passengers diverted to Newfoundland on 11 September has plenty of heart but not enough biteThis musical by the Canadian married team of Irene …
Linked From The Guardian at 05:54PM 
