All stories by Michael Billington on BroadwayStars

Monday, November 18, 2024

Lend me your ears: great Shakespearean actors given hi-tech talking portraits by Michael Billington

A radical new exhibition celebrates stars including Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart by combining subtly moving artworks with their own voices. The results are uncanny Great actors have alw…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:48AM
Thursday, November 14, 2024

Sigourney Weaver’s West End debut as Prospero evokes a storm of past Tempests by Michael Billington

The Hollywood star is to appear at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in Shakespeare’s late play about sorcery. But what is the secret to playing the great magician? I have one thing in common with …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:42AM
Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Timothy West: a modest maestro who embodied the best of British theatre by Michael Billington

With a remarkable knack of bringing history to life on stage and screen, West honed his craft with devotion and delight• Timothy West, star of stage, screen and television, dies aged 90•…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:06AM
Thursday, November 7, 2024

The importance of freeing Earnest – without bursting Oscar Wilde’s ‘delicate bubble of fancy’ | Michael Billington by Michael Billington

The 1895 comedy has been staged with age-blind and all-male casts and even David Suchet as Lady Bracknell. Now reinvented again, at the National Theatre, the trick is to be seriously funny I…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:54AM
Monday, October 7, 2024

Leonard Rossiter’s manic physicality was a revelation | Michael Billington by Michael Billington

His gangster Hitler in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui turned him into a star but from his earliest roles the actor had an unforgettable expressive force • Rossiter interviewed by the Gua…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:12AM
Friday, October 4, 2024

John Osborne and Arnold Wesker captured the 50s but remain playwrights for the ages | Michael Billington by Michael Billington

I was 16 when I became obsessed with Look Back in Anger. Now, in a double bill with Roots at the Almeida, both dramas’ eternal truths are clear John Osborne and Arnold Wesker had a lot in …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:36AM
Monday, August 26, 2024

Sir Ken Dodd’s new ‘happiness centre’ tickles me but should be taken seriously | Michael Billington by Michael Billington

A £15m, four-storey space in Liverpool is to be dedicated to the man once known as Professor Yaffle Chuckabutty. Let’s hope it will delve as deeply as he did into comedy’s infinite vari…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:36PM
Monday, August 19, 2024

Dominic West is a fabulous Faustus but this movie marathon plays the devil with Marlowe | Michael Billington by Michael Billington

West joined a starry cast for script-in-hand readings of Christopher Marlowe’s complete works in Canterbury. The resulting films are frustrating On paper, it sounds a fine idea: to film al…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:54AM
Monday, August 5, 2024

‘My first play was terrible!’ Alan Ayckbourn on his dazzling career – and writing his 90th play by Michael Billington

As he hits an extraordinary landmark, the playwright relives his first drama, which made him £30, and recalls bouncing back from the stroke that left him desolate and devoid of ideas It is …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:00AM
Monday, July 29, 2024

The waiting is over! Have the times finally caught up with Godot? by Michael Billington

Samuel Beckett’s groundbreaking play is back again, this time starring Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati. Its tragicomic take on existence may match our cultural moment Godot keeps on coming.…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:24AM
Monday, July 22, 2024

‘As good as playing to a packed theatre’: the actors who perform for stroke victims by Michael Billington

In hospitals around the UK, InterAct provides bespoke readings tailored to patients’ tastes. Practitioners explain how they benefit too In 2000, the theatre director Caroline Smith nursed …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:54PM
Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Actors’ show-stopping art exhibition: ‘We’re used to rejection so nothing was turned down!’ by Michael Billington

More than 250 works by 40 stage talents are on display in London for an impressively wide-ranging event that supports the Theatre Artists Fund A couple of years ago, two fine actors, Nancy C…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:48AM
Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Venice Biennale theatre: running from UK immigration and revisiting Chekhov by Michael Billington

A welcome glimpse of what is playing beyond Britain, this year’s programme includes a deeply moving drama of migrant jeopardy and an intriguing Three Sisters The Venice Biennale is always …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:24AM
Monday, May 20, 2024

Need proof who wrote Shakespeare’s plays? See The Merry Wives of Windsor by Michael Billington

Set for revival at the RSC, this perfectly structured revenge comedy has an earthy vitality that no aristo or scholar could have created I have a question for those theatrical luminaries (an…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:02AM
Friday, May 10, 2024

‘They’re teaching me’: Greg Doran on staging Shakespeare’s unloved Two Gents with students by Michael Billington

The theatre director, now teaching at Oxford after years running the RSC, thinks The Two Gentlemen of Verona is perfect for a young cast to argue over. We go into rehearsals Which is Shakesp…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12AM
Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Trevor Griffiths: Mancunian Marxist whose political plays deserve revival by Michael Billington

Griffiths, who has died aged 88, explored the conflict between reform and revolution in plays and scripts from the film Reds to dramas such as Occupations, The Party and Comedians Of all the…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:36AM
Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Edward Bond: a phenomenal talent who upturned theatre with his explosive plays by Michael Billington

One of the greatest dramatists of the 20th century, Bond – who has died aged 89 – confronted audiences with ‘the crisis in the human species’ Edward Bond, who has died aged 89, was a…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:06AM
Sunday, March 3, 2024

Great expectations and a bleak house: the promise and perils of staging Dickens by Michael Billington

London Tide at the National Theatre is the latest in a flood of Dickensian adaptations. Few have captured the novelist’s surreal imagination – are solo shows the most successful? Dickens…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:32PM
Monday, February 19, 2024

Long Day’s Journey Into Night: a grand masterpiece and an ordinary family drama by Michael Billington

Eugene O’Neill’s mighty drama, returning to the West End with Brian Cox and Patricia Clarkson, has drawn generations of stage greats and casts its spell with a story we can all recognise…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:02PM
Monday, February 12, 2024

Ian McKellen’s new Hamlet shows the screen can outdo the stage - Michael Billington by Michael Billington

Sean Mathias has reimagined his 2021 production of the tragedy as a movie, inventively using Windsor’s Theatre Royal and capturing McKellen’s subtle performance How best to film a stage …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:12AM
Thursday, January 18, 2024

The many faces of Falstaff: Shakespeare’s tragicomic knight is as complex as Hamlet by Michael Billington

Ian McKellen follows in the footsteps of David Warner and Antony Sher as he takes on a character who has been played as wittily jovial and cruelly cunning When asked why he had never played …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:18AM
Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Front row at the wedding from hell: a toast to theatre’s marital ding-dongs by Michael Billington

Party punch-ups, brides in disguise, simmering family rancour … playwrights have cordially invited audiences to some nightmarish nuptials There are myriad plays about marriage. Far fewer a…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06AM
Friday, January 5, 2024

Seeking Michael Hastings, the missing man of British theatre by Michael Billington

Best known for writing Tom and Viv, Hastings made his debut as a teenage dramatist in the 1950s. Now, his vivid ‘young man’s play’ Don’t Destroy Me is back We watch old movies. We re…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:06AM
Wednesday, December 13, 2023

From Joe Egg to Noises Off, Michael Blakemore was a superb craftsman of theatre by Michael Billington

One of the great postwar theatre directors, Blakemore – who has died aged 95 – had a vast range and was a formidable writer It is sadly ironic that the death of Michael Blakemore, at the…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:24PM

Oh, what a beautiful evening – but this ritzy Rodgers and Hammerstein tribute could have been radical | Michael Billington by Michael Billington

A superb, starry cast in the West End paid homage to the musical duo behind Carousel, Oklahoma! and South Pacific. If only the concert had also addressed their shows’ contradictions The st…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:06AM
Friday, November 24, 2023

Who comes first – playwright or director? It depends which country you’re in by Michael Billington

Katie Mitchell has compared her experiences of hierarchies in British and German theatre. Our strength has always lain in honouring the text Katie Mitchell this week gave the annual lecture …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:02PM
Sunday, November 19, 2023

Joss Ackland: a beacon of power on British stage and screen by Michael Billington

From a sportive Falstaff for the RSC to a powerful Juan Perón in Evita, Ackland – who has died aged 95 – rarely had the star role but was a reassuring presence Joss Ackland, who has die…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:36PM
Monday, November 6, 2023

Ibsen’s Ghosts: a resounding flop that still returns to haunt us by Michael Billington

Despite being panned as ‘a dirty act done publicly’ on its London premiere, the tragedy is now regarded as a classic – here are three productions that radically shifted our perspective…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:24PM
Thursday, October 19, 2023

The National Theatre’s earlier start times are a great result for audiences | Michael Billington by Michael Billington

A pilot scheme means some performances will now begin at 6.30pm. That means more time for eating, travelling and – most importantly – discussing the show ‘The drama’s laws the drama�…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:25AM
Thursday, October 5, 2023

As it turns 60, the National Theatre must balance past and present by Michael Billington

The NT has a civic duty to revive woefully neglected plays from the world repertory. Doing so will make modern drama stronger Writing about the National Theatre on its 50th anniversary, I sa…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:43AM
Thursday, September 28, 2023

Sir Michael Gambon obituary by Michael Billington

Versatile actor with a magnificent presence who starred in The Singing Detective and the Harry Potter filmsThe word “great” is somewhat promiscuously applied to actors. But it was undoub…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:33PM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 01, 2025: Glengarry Glen Ross
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic