Saturday, March 23, 2013
Women are finally getting the chance to make a massive impact in the arts, argues the Observer's theatre criticThis is the difference that a woman at the top of an arts organisation can make…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:06PMSaturday, March 9, 2013
Gielgud, LondonWell, I didn't believe in it but I was seduced by it. At least for a while. The Audience – the first surefire, unstoppable hit of the year – has been created to disarm all…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMButetown, Cardiff"People think we're pirates but we're actually poets." Welsh Somalians living in Cardiff's Butetown – the docks area once known as Tiger Bay – wanted to show the truth o…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, March 2, 2013
Theatre Royal, Bath; Donmar Warehouse, London; Tobacco Factory, BristolLet's forget AA. Let's not put African American in front of August Wilson's name. Instead let's acknowledge that he was…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, February 16, 2013
Viaduct, Halifax; Stratford East; Roundhouse, LondonShe wrote under initials so that no one would know she was a woman. She died thinking her playwriting career was a failure. In New York sh…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, February 9, 2013
Young Vic; Somerset House; Almeida, LondonFeast: yes. But fast, too. I've rarely seen anything so bursting with visual ideas, so thrumming with interesting sounds and rhythms and so skinnily…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, February 2, 2013
Harold Pinter theatre, LondonIt looks like a wheeze at first, a publicist's gamble to get people to pay twice for the same evening. Yet the double casting of Kristin Scott Thomas and Lia Wil…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:07PMLyttelton, LondonA new version of A Doll's House, an updating of Ubu Roi, a triumphant, West End-bound adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Before that: wild swer…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMWyndham's, LondonAt first the casting of Rowan Atkinson looks perverse. In fact it's inspired. The truly startling stroke in Simon Gray's 1981 play is that it makes its main character a void…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMSaturday, January 26, 2013
Royal Exchange, Manchester; Hampstead; Tricycle, LondonWith what varied meanings the word "pals" winds through Peter Whelan's 1982 play. This is a drama full of warmth between both women and…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMFrom the Foxes to the Redgraves, the Observer's theatre critic Susannah Clapp chooses the most celebrated acting familiesSusannah Clapp
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:00AMSaturday, January 19, 2013
Royal Court; Trafalgar Studios; Platform; LondonPolly Stenham's feral families are at the heart of Dominic Cooke's Royal Court. First, in 2007, the bullying child and alcoholic mother of Tha…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, December 29, 2012
Discover Children's Story Centre; Cottesloe; Little Angel; LondonLong before the Olympics there was drama in London's Stratford. It was here in the 50s and 60s that Joan Littlewood and her e…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, December 22, 2012
Crucible, Sheffield; Trafalgar Studios; Battersea Arts Centre, LondonI thought my resistance to My Fair Lady had hardened. I don't like plays sentimentalised by melody, or cockneys singing w…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:09PMSaturday, December 15, 2012
Noël Coward; Royal Court; Tricycle, LondonMichael Grandage is setting out to change the West End. He wants to provide a theatre that is both tempting and affordable. His Michael Grandage Co…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMThe scientific met the psychological to scintillating effect, and hard times called for Shakespeare and Chekhov2012 was a year in which Britain depended on the theatre to show itself off to …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:00PMSaturday, December 8, 2012
Donmar, London; Curve, Leicester; Bristol Old VicAlways fascinating, sometimes infuriating, Phyllida Lloyd's all-female production of Julius Caesar is one of the most important theatrical ev…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, December 1, 2012
Menier Chocolate Factory, London; Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon; Trafalgar Studios, LondonWhat a difference a time scheme makes. Had Merrily We Roll Along been written with a conventional chrono…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, November 24, 2012
Almeida, London; Apollo, London; Olivier, London The Dark Earth and the Light Sky is a rarity. It startles by stealth and apparent quietness, by its steady appeal to unashamed affection and …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, November 17, 2012
Cottesloe; Southwark Playhouse; Gate, all LondonFluorescence, mental disturbance, dancing. The Effect has some of the ingredients that made The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, November 10, 2012
Lyttelton; Noël Coward; Vaudeville; LondonAlan Bennett's sparky, intricate, all-over-the-place new play opened in the week the National Trust announced it had bought the white cliffs of Dov…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMLyttelton; Noël Coward; Vaudeville; London Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMTheatrical treats for all the family for the festive seasonSusannah Clapp
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:01AMSaturday, November 3, 2012
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs/Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Royal Court, London SW1Enron, DC Moore, Clybourne Park, Nina Raine, Posh, Anya Reiss, Love and Information, Polly Stenham, Sucker Punch. …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:01PMSaturday, October 20, 2012
Tricycle; Jermyn Street; Lyric Hammersmith, LondonWhat an incisive, fervent beginning. Indhu Rubasingham takes over with panache at the Tricycle, bowing to the theatre's politically engaged …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:25PMSaturday, October 13, 2012
National Theatre, LondonThis is the National doing its job. Nicholas Hytner's theatre is behaving as if it were a federation of varied talents: the good, the very good and the not so good. T…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, October 6, 2012
Lab; Abbey theatre; Project Arts theatre, DublinDublin is a glorious rarity among theatre festivals. It depends upon itself. It does not assume that the best work, the best subjects, the bes…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:08PMSaturday, September 29, 2012
Harold Pinter theatre; Barbican, LondonTrevor Nunn began the summer by directing a heavy-handed Kiss Me Kate; he ends it by staging a star-encrusted but tepid Chorus of Disapproval. What a w…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, September 22, 2012
Royal Court, London; Young Vic, London; West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsAnother Royal Court command: Love and Information is a play that everyone should see. Once again Caryl Churchill has li…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, September 15, 2012
Old Vic; Almeida; Hampstead, LondonHedda Gabler ends with a famous bang behind closed doors. Wouldn't it, a friend once suggested, be ripping if those doors opened on a Hedda who had put an …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, September 1, 2012
Lowland Hall, Royal Highland Centre; Royal Lyceum; Assembly Hall, Edinburgh"We have waited 48 years to come to the Edinburgh international festival," said Ariane Mnouchkine. Audiences have w…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PM 
