1,418 stories by "Aleks Sierz"
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
The idea of the perfect murder is a genre standard. The fantasy that you are so intellectually gifted that you could use a supremely clever scheme to bump off an enemy, or make a fortune, is…
Once radical theatre companies are increasingly celebrating anniversaries, as if to say, hey, look, we're still here. Now it's the turn of Frantic Assembly to mark its 25th anniversary with …
In the era of Brexit, and the government's new immigration proposals, Tim Cowbury's The Claim feels suddenly even more relevant.
Caryl Churchill, Britain's best living playwright, is enjoying a spate of high-profile revivals of her classic work. Last year, the National Theatre staged her Top Girls, and an upcoming pro…
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
Your story. Our story. Their story. Just imagine: you're a political refugee, and, having experienced horrible things that happened to your family, you finally, after a lot of trouble, arriv…
Despite its absurdist style, Pass Over is a political play whose message is indisputable. The evening is a powerful mixture of male camaraderie, brutality and almost casual defiance.
If the intimate play A Number feels a bit lost in the vast space of the Bridge, the performances are big enough to give it the required punch.
Genetic engineering is in the news again. This follows the resignation of Andrew Sabisky as special advisor to Boris Johnson after a twitter storm about his comments on race and intelligence…
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
History plays should perform a delicate balancing act: they have to tell us something worth knowing about the past, that foreign country where they do things differently, and also something …
Last week, I went for the first time to Stoke Newington's Tower Theatre, whose company has since 2018 been putting on a repertory program, which is inclusive and ambitious, on the outer r…
No playwright has had greater influence on successive generations of theatre-makers than Samuel Beckett. Yet it is surprising how rarely his work is revived in the big London theatres, of wh…
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
This well-focused revival of Caryl Churchill's, brief dystopic classic Far Away is vivid but frankly unexceptional.
"Fetch me 'ammer." (Edward Bond, Saved) "Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it." (Bertolt Brecht) A couple of years ago, our family got a new puppy. It …
If neither newspapers nor intelligence services will lose sleep over the way Blyth represents them, The Haystack is insightful enough to be a contemporary state-of-the-nation parable.
Total surveillance: this is the idea that every moment of our waking existence can be spied upon by the state, or by some foreign country. It's a paranoid notion based on the huge growth of …
Your sweet tooth can get you into trouble. Lots of trouble. In this revival of Lucy Prebble's provocative debut, first staged at the Royal Court in 2003, the metaphor of sugar, and of the po…
A new monologue about rage, racism and national identity, Death of England at the National Theatre is magnificent in its fury and perception.
A star cast led by Daniel Radcliffe, Alan Cumming and Jane Horrocks make light work of the Beckett classic Endgame.
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
Tonight, I discovered the gasp index. Or maybe just re-discovered. The what? The gasp index. It's when you see a show that keeps making you exhale, sometimes audibly, sometimes quietly. Like…
