Finborough, LondonTony Harrison’s collision of high and low art fashions a Greek satyr play into a barbed comment on the lack of imagination in contemporary cultureMy abiding memory of Ton…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:24AMOld Vic, LondonBilled as a "Victorian thriller", Patrick Hamilton's Gaslight was written in 1938. But it is that rare thing: a re-creation of an old form which works in its own terms. And it…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:04AMFrom the archive: The first night review, published on 16 October 1996, for Yasmina Reza’s play at Wyndham’s theatre in LondonYasmina Reza’s Art, translated from the French by Christop…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:54AMHow better to make sense of this turbulent year than through the art and literature it has produced? Our critics choose the works that sum up the last 12 monthsIf there is one film that hold…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:36AMRoyal Court, LondonEnda Walsh has invented a new cast of fairground misfits to stretch Dahl’s tale for the stage, but the titular couple are still the funniest thing in this anarchic farce…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:33PMIn plays by David Storey and Anthony Shaffer, Clarke was something special on stage. If only theatre had made more use of him…• Warren Clarke: a life in clipsWarren Clarke had a rich and…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:48PMOld Vic, LondonTim Key and Paul Ritter are equally strong in a tale of shifting power alliances between a trio of men following the purchase of an extortionate paintingLife may sometimes be …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:36AMDonmar Warehouse, LondonJosie Rourke’s update of the Shaw classic sets Arterton’s determined spiritual warrior against a boardroom full of male bankers, warmongers and Daily Mail-reading…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:54AMOlivier, LondonThe end crowns all. For much of its length I found this production of Shakespeare's early masterpiece slightly strenuous fun as if its director, Dominic Cooke, on his National…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:36PMTheatre Royal Haymarket, London Christopher Luscombe’s double dose of comedies begins elegantly, but when Lisa Dillon and Edward Bennett let fly in Much Ado, it becomes a festive romp3/5 …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:18PMAlmeida, LondonSharing the roles of Elizabeth and her Scottish cousin, Stevenson and Williams are a pleasure to watch but Robert Icke’s production lacks subtlety elsewhereJuliet Stevenson …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:36AMLondon PalladiumPaul O’Grady, Nigel Havers and Amanda Holden are among the stars in an outrageous and deeply knowing pantomimeWith Paul O’Grady and Julian Clary in the leads, pantomime p…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:54AMDorfman theatre, LondonAlexander Zeldin’s devised piece depicts the endurance and needless suffering of two families living in temporary accommodationIn Beyond Caring, Alexander Zeldin cre…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42AMLyttelton, London Ruth Wilson superbly conveys the desolation of Ibsen’s ahead-of-her-time aesthete in Ivo van Hove’s invigorating modern-dress versionThe extraordinary Ruth Wilson stars…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:36AMWilton’s Music Hall, LondonThe veteran comic is the chief delight of a warm-hearted production mixing morality, melodrama and magicIt’s been a vintage year for 80-year-olds in the Britis…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42AMPark theatre, LondonThis adaptation of CS Lewis’s collection of sardonic letters from a senior to a junior devil is excessively and noisily theatricalThe big question is whether CS Lewis�…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:48AMNew Diorama, London"Our aim," says Mark Leipacher, director of the young Faction company, "is to create big, bold, bombastic theatre with limited resources." I'm not sure about bombastic; on…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:24AMHampstead theatre, LondonMichael Frayn excavates Chekhov’s six-hour drama, written when he was 20, for this bittersweet comedy about a schoolteacher torn between romantic rivalsIt is stran…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:04AMMenier Chocolate Factory, London The cult 1960s show lives up to its Broadway pedigree and the performances are perfectly pitched in this skilful, intimate staging “This may be the best pr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:02AMYoung Vic, LondonPlaying a studio mogul at the dawn of the talkies, Enfield makes an assured theatre debut but this production puts visual bravura before verbal precisionHarry Enfield, as we…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:02AMGlenda Jackson ruled as Lear and Harry Potter left the West End spellbound but a three-hour drama in an empty cinema tops our critic’s pick of the year’s theatreMore on the best culture …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:31AMOlivier, London Sally Cookson’s inventive playfulness reinforces the hero’s devotion to fun and games but remains true to the melancholy spirit of JM Barrie’s playJM Barrie’s play is…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42AMSwan theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonAnders Lustgarten’s play pits the biblical morality of an Italian masterpiece against the cruelty of current housing policies with ingenuity and humourAnde…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:24AMTrafalgar Studios, LondonHarris impresses as a whiskey-soaked old wreck in Shepard’s gothic story of loveless inertia and poisonous guilt in a dysfunctional familyIt is good to see Hollywo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:24PMGarrick, LondonGraham captures the daily machinations of politics, and raises questions about our current parliamentary system, in this account of Labour’s 1970s strugglesIt has taken four…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:48PMOrange Tree, Richmond Maugham’s 1933 play – about a man whose charitable giving horrifies his family – beautifully skewers the self-interestedness of society then and nowSomerset Maugh…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:42AMFinborough, London Oscar Toeman directs Rodney Ackland’s most autobiographical work, which painfully records the reckless optimism that accompanies any theatrical ventureTime has lent a pa…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:24AMHarold Pinter theatre, LondonRylance plays a goofball novice on an ice-fishing trip in a play that feels derivative and slides into absurdismMark Rylance and Louis Jenkins have fashioned a p…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:42PMRoyal Court, LondonFrancesca Annis, Ron Cook and Deborah Findlay give fine performances in a post-apocalyptic play that is genuinely disturbingLucy Kirkwood astonished us in 2013 with the ep…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:12AMA refurbished version of the 1963 Tommy Steele vehicle has opened in the West End and joins a string of stellar homegrown hitsIt is an odd, but intriguing, fact that Oh! What a Lovely War an…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:12AMFollowing the hip-hop musical’s special message to the US vice-president elect, here’s a selection of great American shows that could enlighten him and his bossEveryone knows what happen…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06AM
