Friday, May 22, 2020
Nice in-jokes and smart observations about actors
A running gag in David Nicholls' novel The Understudy is that its main character is called Steve McQueen. Not that Steve McQueen, the multi…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 12:12AMTuesday, March 3, 2020
Immersion in Georgian court intrigue
Les Enfants Terribles is the theatre company behind several interesting immersive projects, including Alice's Adventures Underground and Inside Pussy Rio…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 03:36AMMonday, February 17, 2020
Ben Elton's new comedy is a gagfest
What joy it is to welcome this offshoot of the television series to the West End stage – complete with several of that show's cast, plus a few new addit…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:36PMThursday, January 9, 2020
Mischief Theatre and Penn & Teller mash-up
Mischief Theatre's “Goes Wrong” oeuvre is now well established: broad humour combined with physical comedy and slapstick mishaps. Magic Goe…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:48PMWednesday, December 18, 2019
Mischief Theatre with another enjoyable farce
Mischief Theatre is a wonder of modern commercial theatre. In 2008, group of young actors who had met at drama school started the ensemble – w…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 09:06PMWednesday, December 11, 2019
Purists may quibble at circus-themed show
When Qdos brought back pantomime to the Palladium three years ago after an absence of nearly 30 years, it set the bar high with superb production v…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 10:18PMSunday, November 3, 2019
David Baddiel's debut play tackles a big issue
David Baddiel is a very fine comic, and over the past few years has become an acclaimed author of children's books. So I'm genuinely sad to sa…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 12:33AMMonday, September 30, 2019
Jane Austen redux fizzes with ideas
What a joy Laura Wade's latest play is. Transferring from its successful run at the Minerva Theatre at Chichester last year, The Watsons is developed from…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 09:24PMThursday, August 29, 2019
Jacobean comedy gets a rare outing
It was a bold choice by director Blanche McIntyre to stage Ben Jonson's seldom performed, sprawling slice-of-life play in the bijou Sam Wanamaker Playhouse…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 09:18PMWednesday, August 28, 2019
Final outing for Phoebe Waller-Bridge as her iconic creation
We're saying goodbye to a much treasured friend. Fleabag will live on, of course – other actresses have and will inhabit the ro…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 07:54PMFriday, August 16, 2019
More from the world's biggest and best arts festival
The Red Pleasance Dome ★★★★
Comic Marcus Brigstocke has spoken in the past about his addictions and now he has written this two…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 09:06PMSaturday, August 10, 2019
More from the world's biggest and best arts festival
On the Other Hand, We’re Happy Summerhall ****
This affecting co-production between Paines Plough and Theatr Clywd of Daf James’s pl…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 04:42AMTuesday, July 2, 2019
Jeremy Herrin's production of modern classic feels leaden
Michael Frayn's Noises Off is a modern classic, a backstage sex farce that pokes affectionate fun at a profession he loves. And now …
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:42PMSunday, March 10, 2019
Penelope Skinner probes the men's rights movement
Penelope's Skinner's monologue was a critical and audience hit at last year's Edinburgh Fringe, when its talking point found its moment. He…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:17PMTuesday, February 19, 2019
David Ireland's dark, absurdist comedy about identityDavid Ireland is a playwright who likes to jolt his audience and Cyprus Avenue, a dark absurdist comedy about an Ulster unionist afr…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 07:32PMWednesday, January 23, 2019
Martin Crimp's latest about a sex game is all talk and no actionWhen it was announced that Cate Blanchett was making her National Theatre debut with Martin's Crimp's new play, When We h…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:32PMTuesday, December 18, 2018
West End transfer for Tony Kushner's musical about race and povertyWith the politics of hate alive and well both sides of the Atlantic, this seems a good time to revive Tony Kushner and…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:04PMSunday, December 16, 2018
Enjoyable but underpoweredPaul Merton has a lot of strings to his bow – stand-up, improv artist, historian of silent-movie-era comedy, quiz-show panellist, to name a few – and now he add…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 08:54PMSunday, December 9, 2018
Susie McKenna creates fast-paced fun in a busy mixSusie McKenna and Steven Edis have been creating pantos for Hackney Empire for 20 years, and over that time its seasonal offering has become…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 10:32PMWednesday, November 28, 2018
Dick jokes in abundance told in urban street style pantomimeIn 2009 Sean Holmes, then Lyric Hammersmith's artistic director, made a bold move by reintroducing panto at the lovely Frank Match…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 04:54AMMonday, October 29, 2018
Two-hander with a Walt Whitman poem and a clever twistHere's a good pub quiz question: after Shakespeare, who was the most performed playwright in America last year? Arthur Miller? Tennessee…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 09:06PMMonday, August 27, 2018
Rose Matafeo’s take on twentysomething life is toast of the FringeNew Zealander Rose Matafeo has won the coveted best comedy show award at the Edinburgh festival fringe. Steve Coogan, one …
Linked From The Guardian at 06:18AMMonday, July 16, 2018
Les Dennis is superb as a washed-up comicLes Dennis was once a marquee name on Saturday night television as host of Family Fortunes, but since giving up the light entertainment lark he now p…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 10:06PMWednesday, April 11, 2018
James Graham tells of the "coughing major" who wanted to be a millionaireYou could be forgiven for not remembering the “coughing major” brouhaha in 2001, coming as it did the d…
Linked From theartsdesk.com at 02:00AMSaturday, November 4, 2017
Jamie Campbell came out at 14, wore a dress to his school dance and dreamed of being a drag star. Throught it all, he was supported by his mother. Now, their lives are the subject of a music…
Linked From The Guardian at 02:54AMSunday, August 13, 2017
Reginald D Hunter spurns good taste, Sara Pascoe goes solo, and Jan Ravens is everyone elseTop calls in this year’s fringe comedy bingo – where punters make a mental tick each time jokes…
Linked From The Guardian at 03:24AMMonday, October 17, 2016
Kemp Powers’ play is set in a dingy motel room in Miami on the night of 25 February 1964, after Cassius Clay (as Muhammad Ali then was) had earlier beaten Sonny Liston to gain the world he…
Linked From The Arts Desk at 08:06PMWednesday, September 21, 2016
Michael Head's new play is based on the book They Took the Lead by Stephen Jenkins, which tells the true story of events at Clapton Orient (now Leyton Orient) Football Club during the First …
Linked From The Arts Desk at 07:15PMMonday, August 22, 2016
Angel by Henry Naylor, Gilded Balloon ****Rehana tells us what her hometown Kobane in Syria, is like - “A small border town where nothing happens … like Berwick-on-Tweed,” she says –…
Linked From The Arts Desk at 10:02PMSunday, April 3, 2016
Alan Ayckbourn's How the Other Half Loves - first performed in 1969, in the round at the Library Theatre in Scarborough - was only his second play. Already, though, it has a few Ay…
Linked From The Arts Desk at 07:56PMThursday, March 24, 2016
This is set in “a world midway between Elizabethan pageant and haute-couture catwalk”, a programme note for Scena Mundi's production says - and the initial signs certainly point to that.…
Linked From The Arts Desk at 10:55PM 
