Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Walking the Tightrope, Underbelly Potterow ★★★★ Subtitled The Tension Between Art and Politics, this collection of eight short plays on the subject of censorship was prompted by…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:58AMMonday, July 13, 2015
A Richard Bean play is always to be welcomed - he wrote England People Very Nice and One Man, Two Guvnors, two of the most enjoyably rambunctious comedies of recent years - but also with a n…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:33PMSaturday, June 27, 2015
Comedian and writer Mark Steel recently found out the story behind his adoption in 1960. And the truth was so extraordinary that you almost couldn’t make it up …Families are funny things…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:03AMWednesday, June 24, 2015
Gurinder Chadha's Bend It Like Beckham was a huge hit, a small-budget British film that in 2002 unexpectedly found an international audience way beyond its setting in suburban west London, a…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:26PMWednesday, June 10, 2015
Football is a subject close to Patrick Marber's heart. He's a lifelong Arsenal fan and during his sojourn away from London (and writing, as he was suffering from writer's block for much of i…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 10:19PMMonday, May 11, 2015
The 87-year old singer, comedian and all-round entertainer knows how to work a crowd, says Veronica Lee
SOURCE: The Telegraph at 07:34AMMonday, May 4, 2015
A couple stand on the stage, squaring up to each other. They are in the middle of an argument. The Man has just, out of the blue, suggested they have a baby. The Woman, understandably, needs…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMSunday, April 19, 2015
Owen McCafferty’s new play could have had as its starting point John Updike’s line "Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face”, for it deals with stand-up comedian Steve Johnston, wh…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:05PMSunday, January 11, 2015
There is a tree on stage. Not a real tree but a full-size fake one (made by Take 1 Scenic Services) that reaches the ceiling, with lots of branches and leaves. As the audience enters the Old…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:24PMTuesday, December 30, 2014
Birmingham Hippodrome claims to stage the UK's biggest pantomime - a proud boast that highlights its productions' West End-level of investment. And this year's venture, Jack and the Beanstal…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMThursday, December 18, 2014
The audience for this show could probably be divided into to two camps; those who fondly remember watching Morecambe & Wise on ITV or the BBC, and those who weren't even born when Eric M…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMFriday, October 31, 2014
Ireland has had not just an economic meltdown in the past few years, but also a social one. The country that thought it had seen the back of emigration going back several generations has had…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:08PMWednesday, September 17, 2014
One of the oddities about theatre is that there can be a gripping performance at the heart of an underwhelming production - and so is the case with Maxine Peake’s Hamlet, directed by Sarah…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:23AMSunday, September 7, 2014
The traffic warning signs into Limerick City from Shannon Airport told their own story: first “Giant saga in progress”, then “City of Culture giant event”, followed by “Giant’s d…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:06PMWednesday, August 13, 2014
Cuckooed, Traverse Theatre *****Mark Thomas's new show is in the theatre section of the Fringe brochure, but this hour, full of laughs and witty lines as it is, could easily be under the hea…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:08PMTuesday, August 12, 2014
Rona Munro's history cycle may take some liberties with the facts, as the writer admits in the programme notes, but its broad narrative sweep has been talked about as a state-of-the-Scottish…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:01AMSaturday, August 9, 2014
Andrew Maxwell tells the Scots in the audience that he’s going to “rip the shit out of everything they hold dear” in Hubble Bubble, his take on the independence referendum. He doesn’…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:16AMMonday, May 12, 2014
Waiting For Godot is one of those plays that even those who have never seen it know something about. “A tragicomedy in two acts”, as Becket's subtitle described it, in which two tramps i…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:29PMWednesday, April 9, 2014
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton's musical was first seen in the West End in 2000, where it received mixed reviews and ran for just under a year. In 2009-10, they reworked the show for prod…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:19PMFriday, March 28, 2014
Well, that was a bit of a brain workout for the first episode - I confess for much of the opening instalment (five more to follow) I didn't have a clue what was going on, who anybody was and…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:20PMMonday, March 24, 2014
Jon Robin Baitz learnt his craft writing on big American television shows including The West Wing and he created Brothers & Sisters, and Other Desert Cities - his first Broadwa…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:04PMTuesday, February 25, 2014
You may have a slight sense of déjà vu about a stage production of The Full Monty. Wasn't it a Broadway hit at the turn of the millennium? Well yes it was, but that was an Americanised mus…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMSaturday, January 11, 2014
Actress Gemma Arterton explains why she is rethinking her career and taking on a lead role at Shakespeare's Globe's new theatre
SOURCE: The Telegraph at 02:00AMMonday, December 23, 2013
Panto purists may find fault but there is plenty here to keep young and old happy, says Veronica Lee
SOURCE: The Telegraph at 12:24PMTuesday, December 3, 2013
Comedian Jo Brand is about to make her panto debut - as the genie in Aladdin
SOURCE: The Telegraph at 02:00AMWednesday, November 27, 2013
When Mary J O'Malley's play had its premiere in 1977, it must have seemed quite shocking – vivid descriptions of sex and the male anatomy (albeit only in the minds of boy-obsessed 15-year-…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:01PMMonday, September 16, 2013
First, a warning to those who find certain swearwords beyond the pale - this article contains a few of them, but nothing like the number in the play it reviews. Barking in Essex is not a eve…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:03PMThursday, August 8, 2013
The Events, Traverse Theatre **** read more
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:20AMThursday, July 4, 2013
This is the directorial debut of Eve Best, better known as a talented classical and comedic actress, who was last at Shakespeare's Globe appearing as Beatrice in a superb Much Ado About Noth…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:37PMTuesday, June 18, 2013
Martin McDonagh's play, which premiered in 1997, here receives its first major revival as part of Michael Grandage's star-studded first season at the Noël Coward Theatre. It's a minor moder…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:02PMFriday, June 14, 2013
What to do with an old warhorse like The School for Scandal, a fantastic play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan in 1777 full of smart lines and great parts, beloved not just of profession…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:28PM 
