Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Sara Pascoe: I Am a Strange Gloop review – terrific standup’s uphill struggles by Brian Logan

Artsdepot, LondonThe comedian staggers from the soft play area to deliver a sharp set about Sisyphus, capitalism and motherhood Her last tour, Success Story, found Sara Pascoe in the loved-u…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:12AM

Kathy Maniura: ‘I’ve played a paper straw, a nervous smoke alarm and now a middle-aged cycling man’ by Interview By Liam Pape

The sketch comedian, who merges gentle absurdity with drag, on performing in the rain to an audience of two and how the comedy world needs to change Why did you get into comedy?I’ve always…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48AM
Tuesday, July 15, 2025

‘Beautiful form isn’t enough’: National Ballet of Japan – picture essay by David Levene With Interview By Gavin Blair

Photographer David Levene gained access to the ballet company as they prepared for Ballet Coffret, ahead of a UK tour this month where they will also be performing Giselle at the Royal Opera…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:12AM

‘I would go-go dance in a shower then work on sonnets!’ Ncuti Gatwa’s sexy new Shakespearean drama by David Jays

After surviving the whirlwind of Doctor Who, the actor returns to the stage in ‘horny Elizabethan drama’ Born With Teeth. He and co-star Edward Bluemel discuss bust lips, hot pants and q…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:06AM

The play that changed my life: ‘Michael Gambon’s offstage anarchy as Falstaff made the show better’ by Elliot Levey

When Elliot Levey was cast in Henry IV, Parts One and Two, he didn’t expect water-bombing, corpsing and a character redefined by new teeth In 2005, I was in my late 20s and just getting go…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:06AM

Minnie Driver signs up for lead role as Every Brilliant Thing comes to West End by Chris Wiegand

The actor will follow stars including Lenny Henry and Sue Perkins, leading the hit show in which a performer enlists the audience’s help to tell ‘funny, sad and unique’ story Minnie Dr…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:06AM
Monday, July 14, 2025

Cheers to The Weir! What makes Conor McPherson’s mysterious pub drama so mesmerising? by Mark Fisher

As Brendan Gleeson prepares for his role in a revival of the 1997 hit, the stars of earlier productions toast its deceptively moving and profound barfly banter Appearances are deceptive. On…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:18AM

‘That’s where I found my family’: dancefloor devotees on hedonistic moves and healing grooves by Lyndsey Winship

A new season at London’s Southbank Centre is inspired by Emma Warren’s book Dance Your Way Home, about the potency of communal movement. She and other artists involved explain why the da…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:48AM

Comedian John Tothill: ‘My second near-death experience? I blame the bedtime cheesy chips’ by Brian Logan

The foppish comic underwent a drugs trial to fund his Edinburgh show – and caught malaria. The next year he almost died on stage with an exploded appendix. Why is he going back? ‘In retr…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:32AM
Friday, July 11, 2025

Peter James obituary by Michael Coveney

Innovative artistic director at theatres including the Liverpool Everyman, the Sheffield Crucible and the Lyric, Hammersmith Peter James, who has died aged 84, was once described as the best…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:24PM

Gameshows, Cliff Richard and Stalin’s most hated play: the British culture sent behind the iron curtain by Simon Usborne

A thaw in relations during the Cold War led to some surprising collaborations between the two nations, involving everyone from Laurence Olivier and Rudolf Nureyev to Gilbert and George. As r…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:06AM

You’re definitely having a laugh! Six hot comedy debuts at Edinburgh fringe 2025 by Rachael Healy

Molly McGuiness is treating audiences to a buffet, sketch troupe Simple Town bring fast-paced fun and Jessica Barton plays Mary Floppins … Here are half a dozen essential acts at the festi…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:48AM
Thursday, July 10, 2025

No shorts, no flip-flops: La Scala bars beachwear from the opera by Angela Giuffrida In Rome

Management ask visitors to ‘choose clothing in keeping with the decorum of the theatre’ after complaints Operagoers have been warned they will be banned from entering Milan’s prestigio…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:54PM

No President review – surreal Trump satire with ballet shoes and boners by Lyndsey Winship

Queen Elizabeth Hall, LondonNew York company Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s take on the US president is an ideas-packed, dance-adjacent comedy inspiring whoops and walkouts Is this show geni…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:18AM

Blackhaine: And Now I Know What Love Is review – avant garde dance that grabs hold of your senses by Daniel Dylan Wray

Diecast, part of Manchester international festivalThe convulsing figures in Tom Heyes’ choreography, paired with intense sound and a guttural MC, are caught in a mesmerising struggle for h…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:06AM

The Merry Wives of Windsor review – Shakespeare’s script is the weakest bit of this joyous revel by Mark Lawson

Shakespeare’s Globe, London Falstaff’s corpulent roisterings are energetically played in Sean Holmes’ summery staging but the homely comedy comes laden with innuendo an…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:06AM

Valery Panov obituary by Jane Pritchard

Ballet dancer whose struggle to leave the Soviet Union in 1972 caused an international outcry that led to his release The virtuoso ballet dancer Valery Panov, who has died aged 87, became a …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:48AM
Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Cover Her / Scenes from Under Milk Wood reviews – music for an unsettlingly vivid torture scene by Erica Jeal

★★ ★ ☆ ☆ / ★★★☆☆ Metronome / Rich Mix, London New works at Spitalfields music festival by Litha Efthymiou and Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade brought a 3rd-century teenage martyr …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:02AM

Noughts & Crosses review – Malorie Blackman’s thought experiment confronts the audience anew by Kate Wyver

Regent’s Park Open Air theatre, LondonCallum and Sephy are a modern Romeo and Juliet, forced to grow up fast as they wade through the crushing racial and class structures that pin them in …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:02AM
Tuesday, July 8, 2025

King Lear is a masterpiece – as told by Akira Kurosawa rather than Shakespeare | Michael Billington by Michael Billington

The tragedy’s mythic quality appeals to adapters the world over but the Japanese film-maker’s Ran, now rereleased, manages to solve the play’s problems I have long had mixed feelings a…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:18AM

‘They feel cleansed, they cry … some really don’t like it!’ The 12-hour psychedelic theatre-rave Trance by Precious Adesina

Inspired by club culture and reincarnation, Tianzhuo Chen and Asian Dope Boys have devised a mesmerising show that unfolds in six two-hour chapters. Prepare to enter hell and then be healed …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:42AM

‘They rewrite the ending’: the knife crime play with its own outreach scheme by Nadia Khomami Arts and Culture Correspondent

Sam Edmunds hopes to help young people with his play The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return Growing up in Luton in the late 90s and early 00s, the playwright Sam Edmunds witnessed …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:36AM

Wolf Moon by Arifa Akbar review – night terrors by Alex Clark

The Guardian’s theatre critic’s imaginative exploration of life in the shadows Arifa Akbar, chief theatre critic of this newspaper, is used to working at night: the journey from curtain…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:36AM
Monday, July 7, 2025

Tim Minchin: Songs the World Will Never Hear review – a bumper night with the marvellous misfit by Brian Logan

Hammersmith Apollo, LondonMinchin embraces his oddball status – is he musician, comedian, auteur or clown? – in this three-hour show It’s 20 years since Tim Minchin’s life-changing E…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:18PM

The young Oscar Wilde’s Russian revolutionary drama reveals a playwright divided by Michael Billington

Vera; or, The Nihilists concerns a plot to kill a tsar but after Alexander II was assassinated, its London premiere was cancelled. Now receiving a rare production, it captures his conflict b…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:54AM

Anne Reid on fame, desire and ambition at 90: ‘The most wonderful things have happened since I was 68!’ by Simon Hattenstone

In her 20s, the actor says, casting directors didn’t rate her. In her 60s, she got her big break. She discusses fun, family, optimism, regrets – and wild sex on screen with Daniel Craig …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:36AM

‘This is art, too’: the Madrid drama space bringing contemporary theatre to older citizens by Sam Jones In Madrid

Participants in the Matadero’s inaugural Senior Audience School discover that theatre ‘takes the sting out of the nonsense in life’ The 25 people who have gathered in a small Madrid th…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:36AM
Sunday, July 6, 2025

Shakespeare in war: bard’s ‘existential’ theatre takes hold in Ukraine by Charlotte Higgins In Ivano-Frankivsk

‘You can always find an intersection to Shakespeare’s world in such situations as we have,’ says translator, as Shakespeare productions boom across Ukraine The Ukrainian Shakespeare fe…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:42PM

Constantine Costi: the 10 funniest things I have ever seen (on the internet) by Constantine Costi

The film and opera director tells us what makes him laugh – which, as it turns out, is entirely Muppets Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email As one of the last of the analogue cross…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:42PM

‘We’re told to be polite and small and dainty. But that’s not me!’: Megan Stalter on starring in Lena Dunham’s new romcom, Too Much by Michael Segalov

Her kooky online skits brought her viral fame and a breakout role in HBO’s Hacks. Then Lena Dunham came calling with the job of a lifetime. Is the actor ready to take centre stage? When Le…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:18PM

Who preserves the homes of Black literary giants | Nneka M Okona by Nneka M Okona

Langston Hughes and Toni Morrison’s childhood homes remain unmarked – raising urgent questions about legacy and preservation Nothing could prepare me for seeing the house that Langston H…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:18PM