Joan Littlewood's pioneering 1963 musical about the first world war not only changed attitudes towards the conflict, it remade British theatre. As the show gets a loving revival, Michael Bil…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:48PMNational, LondonGalileo is a restless, endlessly evolving masterpiece. Brecht himself wrote three versions between 1937 and his death. David Hare has now amplified his 1994 adaptation for th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:06AMBarbican, LondonHow do you recapture the shock impact of Alfred Jarry's 1896 play, with its savage portrait of a grotesque monster? Given that Jarry's play started as a schoolboy prank aimed…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:24PMLyttleton, LondonTwenty five years after its first production, this eight-hour fantasia is revealed as both a document of the Aids crisis and an amply justified vision of US politicsTwo big …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12PMRoyal Court, London Paddy Considine stars as a reformed IRA activist in the Jerusalem playwright’s deeply involving and abundant new workThe combination of Jez Butterworth as writer and Sa…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42PMMinerva, ChichesterDespite stumbling over a line, Henry ended the evening looking totally assured in a Willy Russell revival that proves Lashana Lynch’s star potentialThis was one of the s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:42PMDonmar Warehouse, London Henry exudes authority as a deadly racketeer but Bruce Norris’s version of Brecht’s 1941 drama tries too hard to draw parallels with the new US presidentIt is al…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:24PMFinborough, LondonTwo sisters confront each other and the irrationality of hatred in David Ireland’s blackly comic political dramaDavid Ireland is our theatre’s expert at exploring the p…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:48AMSouthwark Playhouse, London A defiant duchess takes on a corrupt clergyman in this vigorous revival of James Shirley’s cracking 17th-century playJames Shirley (1596-1666) is one of British…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:48AMAlmeida, London Lyndsey Turner’s immaculate, neon-lit revival of Crimp’s 1993 play lays bare the ways reality is exploited and distorted by the mediaThere’s a rich ambiguity to the tit…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:18AMShakespeare’s Globe, LondonThis risible production butchers the language, turns Juliet into a squawking, pampered princess and makes everyone dance to the Village PeopleDaniel Kramer, dire…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:02AMChichester Festival theatreDaniel Evans directs a patchy and slightly chaotic revival of Alan Bennett’s comedy about a Britain torn between tradition and progressDaniel Evans made such a s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:12AMBarbican, LondonJude Law stars in Ivo van Hove’s classy stage adaptation of Luchino Visconti’s 1942 film that just falls short of original’s atmospheric detailJude Law is the big draw …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:42PMVaudeville, LondonPhil Davis and Sinéad Cusack star in Nicolas Kent’s verbatim staging of the US Senate’s confirmation hearings of four of Donald Trump’s political appointeesOne of th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:48AMRoyal Court, LondonSimon Stephens’ experimental new piece about grief and urban alienation is intentionally ‘fluid and contradictory’ – but also baffling and obscureSimon Stephens is…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:02AMThe Old Vic, we read, is "going dark" for the summer: a far more expressive phrase than being "shut", since it implies the temporary extinction of light. But it's also a potent reminder that…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:31PMThe broadcaster’s play Keeping in Touch, aired on Radio 4, is a reply to the classic 1978 drama about the pair’s clandestine seven-year relationship“Truth in drama is forever elusive,�…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:48PMTrafalgar Studios, LondonSimon Callow directs a starry young cast in a revival of Christopher Hampton’s astonishing 70s play about academic havocChristopher Hampton’s comedy of academic …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:54PMThe West End is becoming a Broadway-like shop window for musicals and spectaculars. Hytner and Starr’s theatre devoted to new plays is to be welcomedWhat is instantly striking about the in…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:42AMArcola, LondonNeil Bartlett asks what this 1947 allegory of Nazi occupation means today in a striking production as focused on optimism as on despairAlbert Camus’ novel La Peste was publis…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:12AMThe 2001 staging at Shakespeare's Globe, with Mark Rylance tackling a trio of roles, gave clarity to this convoluted playNot a play for rationalists. Dr Johnson wrote of its "unresisting imb…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:02AMUstinov studio, BathThe Homeland actor plays a tetchy older author clashing with a younger dramatist in Daniel Kehlmann’s compelling study of creative anxietyThis show has the aura of an e…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:18AMWilton’s Music Hall, LondonDerived from a mocking tome on how to lie and cheat your way to the top, this musical brings a welcome note of satire amid a daft plot with beguiling songsMusica…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:02AMBush, LondonHuman curiosity and the capriciousness of power are central to this story of two footmen forbidden to look on the splendour of the Taj Mahal in 1648 Related: Bush Theatre boss Ma…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12AMTrafalgar Studios, LondonThis bedroom drama about a man who steers a gauche student towards sex misses its chance to explore the problems of nostalgia for a pre-Aids pastBill Rosenfield, a L…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:42AMColiseum, LondonENO’s semi-staged production, with a 42-piece orchestra conducted by David Charles Abell, is a memorable reminder of this show’s adventurousnessAfter Sweeney Todd with Br…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:02AMBarbican, LondonI've always thought there's a dodgy brilliance to Carousel. Musically it is far and away the most sophisticated of the Rodgers and Hammerstein operettas, yet lyrically it com…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:36AMDirector and producer whose 60-year career spanned television, theatre and film – from The Jewel in the Crown to Pinter playsIn an age when it is fashionable for directors to be regarded a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:48AMDorfman Theatre, LondonPlaywright explores consciousness, morality and human behaviour in stimulating work that occasionally suffers from information overloadTom Stoppard famously uses drama…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:54PMAlmeida theatre, LondonMike Bartlett has written a speculative play about the future of the monarchy that has the courage to ask serious questionsMike Bartlett has written a speculative play…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:42PMFinborough theatre, London Paul Bradley as a hopeless boozehound, Susan Penhaligon as a haughty mother and Rebecca Collingwood as a sparky sister light up TW Robertson’s 1867 playIt is 150…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:06AM
