1,377 stories by "Aleks Sierz"
Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Royal Court, London: Last year, at this time, playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany teamed up to create Let the Right One In, a vampire romance which w…
The Bush is on a roll. Under artistic director Madani Younis, audiences are up, new plays are flowing in and there are plans to build a permanent studio space. Having just staged Radar, its …
Like good wine, some plays improve with age. The first taste is sharp, and tickles the palette; further sips stimulate and impress, but the rich full flavour is only apparent after a few yea…
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London: The latest episode in this venue's current programme of work on the theme of revolution and resistance is a story about a rebellion of pri…
Much of the recent programming of the Royal Court has flaunted a preference for gimmicky gestures rather than the hard work involved in developing new playwrights. So after its staging of bo…
Young Vic Clare Studio, London: Up-and-coming director Kate Hewitt is the winner of this year's James Menzies-Kitchin Award and she has chosen to revive Caryl Churchill's 2000 dyst…
How can you convey the sheer incomprehensibility of ghastly acts? While most playwrights, when confronted by the horrors of genocide, settle for a journalistic approach that is realistic and…
Hampstead Theatre, London: Roy Williams is one of British theatre's most gifted and prolific playwrights. Although some of his plays have examined black issues, his output is wide-reach…
This venue's current programming is devoted to examining the state of Britain's public services, with a revival of Nina Raine's Tiger Country, about the NHS, coming next month and, playing n…
Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Royal Court, London: In about a year's time, the governments of the world will meet in Paris to act against climate change. This new collaboration between Ch…
When science and the arts combine they form a new genre, which has the unlovely name of "artsci". But although there have now been several plays about climate change in recent years, can an …
Park Theatre, London: This revival, of a play first seen at Manchester's Royal Exchange in 2008, reunites playwright Robert Holman with director Tim Stark, who directed Rafts and Dreams…
Almeida Theatre, London: The award-winning American actor-director David Cromer brings his 2009 Off-Broadway hit revival of this classic play about small-town life to north London. In the pr…
Studio 1, Trafalgar Studios, London: Jamie Lloyd's second Trafalgar Transformed season, which began with Martin Freeman as Richard III, continues with the first major London revival of …
When it first opened in October 1996, Ayub Khan Din's East Is East was hyped as the best Asian play since, well, ever. And audiences flocked to see this 1970s migrant story both in Birmingha…
Are there any real taboos left? I mean, there have been scores of plays about incest, about abuse and about paedophilia. Have all proverbial stones been turned over? According to Deborah Bru…
Writing is a tedious activity, usually requiring a great deal of time spent alone at a desk with a pen, typewriter or laptop. Since a literal representation of this would be death on any sta…
In the context of recent events in Iraq and Syria, the spectre of the ill-fated Iraq War of 2003 looms large once more. What better time for a revival of master-playwright David Hare's story…
Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Royal Court, London: Tim Price specialises in telling true stories about radicals that end badly. After The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning (2012) and Protest S…
Currently, the Royal Court is exploring the theme of revolution and resistance. In its studio space it is staging The Wolf from the Door, Rory Mullarkey's excellent absurdist fantasy of a ve…
Bush Theatre, London: Just as constitutional reform is being discussed in the wake of the Scottish referendum, Chris Thompson's follow-up to his debut Carthage examines the ugly side of…
Opening on the day after the Scottish Referendum, playwight Chris Thompson's new play has a timely, even incendiary, title. It also recalls the sad little song 'Albion' by Pete Doherty and B…
The number of plays commemorating the outbreak of the First World War continues to grow, with some already falling casualty to critical fire or to rapidly waning audience interest. Taking th…
Few contemporary playwrights have enjoyed as many revivals as polymath Philip Ridley. The first two of his 1990s gothic East End trilogy " The Pitchfork Disney and The Fastest Clock in the U…
Wyndham's Theatre, London: Mike Bartlett's wonderfully imaginative "future history play" is the fourth West End transfer for the Almeida Theatre inside a year. Its artistic di…
