Sunday, March 15, 2020
Robert Lepage seizes on the fragments of human lives to build an epic
If you want to pinpoint the genius of Robert Lepage’s multi-faceted seven-hour epic, that has returned to the National…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 11:48PMSunday, March 8, 2020
Paul Kember's play doesn't sing convincingly any more
It may seem strange to watch a play about four English people on a kibbutz in the Seventies, and find yourself thinking about Brexit, bu…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 09:32PMFriday, February 28, 2020
In the #Metoo era, the exploitation of the female characters is particularly resonant
This raunchy, gleefully cynical production takes one of Thomas Middleton’s most famous tragedies and t…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 06:18AMMonday, February 10, 2020
Joe Crilly believed in skewering the romance surrounding sectarian violence
The news that the Continuity IRA created a bomb destined for England on Brexit Day has added to the timeliness of …
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 05:32AMMonday, December 23, 2019
Raw depiction of a community where dreams go to die
Despair hangs like mildew over the small iron-ore mining town of Duluth, Minnesota, where dreams go to die, and the living haunt the clapp…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 10:12AMMonday, December 16, 2019
An interrogation of power, womanhood and the mythologies with which we surround ourselves
History has corseted Elizabeth I with the title of “Virgin Queen” for centuries, but in Ella Hic…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:42AMThursday, December 12, 2019
A stunning tribute to the wild and wonderful life of the mind
This scary, electrically beautiful adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s book about living on the faultline between imagination and real…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 03:36PMTuesday, November 26, 2019
An electric interpretation in which the White Witch – like the devil – has all the best tunes
We all remember that moment when we walked through the back of the wardrobe: the heaviness o…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 06:33AMMonday, November 18, 2019
The script misses all that was distinctive about Berlin and Akhmatova's meeting
How do you begin to dramatise one of the most extraordinary conversations of the 20th century between two of i…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 04:54AMTuesday, November 5, 2019
Wendell Pierce confirms a performance as exciting as any this theatrical year
It is 70 years since Willy Loman first paced a Broadway stage; 70 years since audiences were sucked into the vor…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 07:48AMWednesday, October 30, 2019
RSC transfers works best when it engages with the complex emotions of the play
Even the most ardent Bardophile has to admit that most of the time the Fool doesn’t shine in a Shakespeare…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 07:18AMTuesday, October 22, 2019
A potent anatomy of how words and power intertwine
At a point in history where – yet again – a few misplaced words from English politicians could wreak havoc with Irish lives, this is a …
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 06:18PMFriday, October 11, 2019
First-time playwright Ruby Thomas is a daring and exciting new voice
This ingenious short work deftly investigates themes of love and identity with a breezy assurance that marks first time …
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 07:48AMFriday, September 20, 2019
Incisive, intelligent and deeply moving
The Permanent Way first roared its way into the national consciousness in 2003 when, after a triumphant opening in York, it toured the UK before tran…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:12AMFriday, September 6, 2019
The evening is as devastatingly moving as it is bitingly funny
If Russia is, as Winston Churchill once so memorably said, “a riddle, wrapped inside a mystery, wrapped inside an enigma”, …
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 07:03AMWednesday, August 28, 2019
A resonant tragedy of mutual incomprehension, fresh from the Edinburgh Festival
Neil Armfield’s resonant, turbulent production of Kate Grenville’s classic Australian novel The Secret Riv…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:54AMTuesday, July 16, 2019
Energetic two-hander offers a sparky portrait of a transforming city
This witty street-smart play about a white-skinned boy born to a mixed-race mother deploys its narrative with the dexteri…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 06:48AMWednesday, July 3, 2019
Navigating the script is a bit like going in a car with a driver who's just passed their test
This lovingly lo-tech visit to galaxies far far away is a curious proposition, which, while neit…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 03:48AMWednesday, June 12, 2019
Nicholas Hytner's vivacious 21st-century take shines like a disco glitterball
Nicholas Hytner’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Bridge Theatre is a feat of exuberant brilliance, a gende…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 05:36AMSunday, May 26, 2019
A moving antidote to fast-paced narratives and rampant individualism
Our Town was written shortly before World War Two about a small town in America in the years leading up to World War One,…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 09:36PMThursday, May 23, 2019
A simultaneously sweeping and intimately human production
Mammon and Yahweh are the presiding deities over an epic enterprise that tells the story not just of three brothers who founded a ba…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 04:24AMWednesday, May 15, 2019
Roy Williams revival looks beyond the headlines to see the codes, complexity and camaraderie of crime
We are living in a time when gang culture rips and roars its way down London streets, an…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 07:54AMThursday, May 2, 2019
The production's levity eviscerates the underpinning emotional realities
Often the greatest works of dramatic absurdism spring from the worst extremes of human experience, whether it’s Ion…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 06:06AMSunday, April 7, 2019
A soaringly irreverent postmodern caper through shifting attitudes to homosexuality
A loo with fuschia-pink carpet to catch splashback; an Archbishop of Canterbury who’s in it for the skir…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:00PMThursday, March 28, 2019
A spikily poignant reminder of humanity in politically dark times
In an age where political, social, and gender norms seem to be in perpetual meltdown, it should be pretty much impossible fo…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 03:19AMMonday, March 18, 2019
Adjoa Andoh is a magnetic Richard with her hawk-like glare and vigorous swagger
Richard II has become the drama of our times, as it walks us through the impotent convulsions of a weak and va…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 06:30AMWednesday, March 13, 2019
Anna Washburn's play for the Almeida achieves lift-off in the West End
As China and the US arm-wrestle for world-domination in everything from trade to military power, we find ourselves in t…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 05:15AMFriday, February 15, 2019
This dark comedy raises disturbing questions about sound and intimacyTwo men called "Massimo" face the audience, one very tall, one very, well, minimo. The tall Massimo (Tom Espiner, picture…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:12AMWednesday, February 6, 2019
Sex and technology run like faultlines through this workThere is no doubt that this Cherry Orchard, whirled into town by Roman Abramovich from Moscow, is going to be divisive. If you, like …
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:48AMThursday, January 31, 2019
Revolution is about youth, music, anger, and - frankly - sexIs there a connection between revolution and theatre? The answer has to be yes – a visceral one. The supremacy of symbols, the c…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 04:32AMWednesday, January 16, 2019
Revelations that should feel toxic seem tepidTheatrical alchemy is eternally slippery.
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 04:24AM 
