He presented himself as a message-free entertainer but, 50 years after his death, it is time to reconsider the variety of the great playwright’s work Anniversaries offer a chance for reapp…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:17AMDramatist and screenwriter whose best-known stage play, Alpha Beta, is a scorching study of marriage and morality As a passionate lover of football, in particular of Liverpool FC, Ted Whiteh…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:06PMIt was a box-office hit directed by John Gielgud and created turmoil on stage and off. Now, the 1964 Broadway staging has inspired The Motive and the Cue, a new play by Jack Thorne In 1964 R…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:00PMPaul Mescal and Patsy Ferran battle it out in the Almeida’s new production of a poetic drama whose ambiguity is enthralling Tennessee Williams’s old bus keeps on running. The Almeida’s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:48PMPitting the capital against the regions is a cynical political ploy and the Arts Council’s cuts are a catastrophe for new writing – as well as the entertainment industry The resignation …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:54AMCostumes, props, posters and archive footage all feature in an exhibition that leaves you itching to see some shows again Weave your way round the new exhibition Re:Imagining Musicals at the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:03AMAn immense task awaits the Royal Shakespeare Company’s new artistic directors who must attract top talent, prioritise verse-speaking and combine classic repertory and contemporary drama It…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:55PMThe whodunnit starring Saoirse Ronan is a fun spoof but tinkers with history and never captures the unique way Agatha Christie’s play fascinated audiences in the 50s The smell of greasepai…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:49PMMike Bartlett’s 2014 play anticipated a constitutional crisis, while playwrights including Shakespeare and Chekhov have shown how traumatic a transfer of power can be What does the future …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:03AMThe monarch was sympathetically depicted by dramatists and at a 1999 production of Oklahoma! her eyes lit up when she recalled her own theatrical outings “I’ve never been fond of the the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:49AMMichael Frayn’s comedy is not just extremely funny but also acknowledges the fragile artifice of order – in theatre and the world beyond All plays, wrote critic John Lahr, are dated. He …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:33AMThe two titans of modern drama were both cricket obsessives. What if they had faced the fast bowlers together? Playwright Shomit Dutta explains why he made it happen – with darkly comic dr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMAn actor of innate tenderness and grace, Warner had a theatre career of two halves, each with superb performances at the RSC I have never forgotten my first sighting of David Warner, who has…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:18PMIn our many meetings, the director’s conversation was as invigorating as the way he led audiences through the night in his staging of The Mahabharata In 1979, Peter Brook made a film of Gu…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:03PMSam Mendes’s The Lehman Trilogy and Marianne Elliott’s Company took 10 prizes between them and demonstrated the power of UK subsidised theatre “Brits Triumph on Broadway” is one of t…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:00AMA meeting of minds at the National Theatre showed ways to stage drama along environmentally sound lines. But is everyone on board? ‘Theatre will be measured by its response to the climate …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:42PMA provocative new film at Cannes featuring Ian McKellen attempts to de-romanticise the Dane but lags behind what theatre productions have been telling us for decades TS Eliot called Hamlet �…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:37AMBeth Steel’s The House of Shades unites national politics and private lives through the fortunes of a working-class family from 1965 to 2019 Old myths die hard. One of the greatest in thea…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:03PMGregory Doran has achieved much at the RSC and directed some fine productions. Let’s have an actor in charge next: how about Adjoa Andoh or Simon Russell Beale? When the boss of a big thea…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:18AMBertie Carvel is brilliant in The 47th, Mike Bartlett’s ingenious play about the former US president, but the real parallel is not with the Bard’s kings but his hollow braggarts If you w…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:12AMCriticised for moral ambiguity on its premiere, the 1965 drama – about a woman in a masculine world of aggression and pretence – is back to provoke and disturb Call a play a “modern cl…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54PMOwen Horsley’s new production of Henry VI, Parts 2 and 3, uses a cast of 120, including professionals and community participants, with some of them filming the action on stage I discovered…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:18AMIan Smith’s moving tribute to the late Colin Cowdrey is a gentle reminder of the abiding link between the stumps and the stage Cricket and theatre have long been intimate bedfellows. Strol…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:12PMThe Tragedy of Macbeth follows in the footsteps of Orson Welles’s 1948 film, which showed how imagination can turn Shakespeare’s text into more than a costume epic With Joel Coen’s The…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:12AMDespite some clever reimaginings of Tartuffe, UK stages remain depressingly inattentive to one of the greatest playwrights In France the 400th anniversary of Molière’s birth is being cele…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:54AMEdmond Rostand’s great romantic has drawn actors including Ralph Richardson, Antony Sher and James McAvoy to its lead role. It is a tale of glorious theatricality, glittering poetry and he…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:12AMThe Scottish theatre-maker, who has died aged 79, brought us an epic 12-hour production of the Mysteries and the world premiere of Glengarry Glen Ross Bill Bryden, who has died aged 79, was …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:48PMIn a surprisingly class-conscious stage adaptation of the HG Wells-inspired musical from the Downton Abbey creator on Sky, Charlie Stemp radiates kindly innocence What’s in a name? Quite a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:18PMThe super-producer, celebrating his 75th birthday with a retrospective on TV, talks about the pandemic’s effect on commercial theatre – and his fury with government Cameron Mackintosh wi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:48PMColin Murphy’s remarkable play takes us behind closed doors as high-stakes negotiations for Irish independence take place ‘I wanna be in the room where it happens,” sings Aaron Burr in…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:06PMOne of the most gifted actors of his era, Sher – who has died aged 72 – combined psychology and a keen sense of the visual in soul-baring performances Antony Sher, who has died at the ag…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:54AM