1,386 stories by "Aleks Sierz"
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…
Dramatic national events such as riots tend to attract verbatim theatre practitioners like smashed shop windows attract looters. In this new play, Alecky Blythe " who specialises in recordin…
There is so much public anxiety about paedophiles on the internet that it's surprising that so few plays tackle the issue. Now Los Angeles playwright Jennifer Haley brings her new play on th…
While it is something of a cliché to be reminded that forgetting the past is a sure way of repeating it, the problems of the Middle East are so acute that this thought might be worth taking…
Olivier, National, London: Helen McCrory returns to the National Theatre in the title role of Euripides' play about a woman who kills her children in revenge for her husband Jason'…
Plays about religious belief present something of a problem. How can theatre-makers, who tend to be very secular-minded, convey the mindset of believers without being patronising? And once t…
When, before the great Miners' Strike of 1984-85, Britain still had a coal industry, the miner was at the centre of a never-ending class war: you saw him either as an honest proletarian, in …
The National Theatre delayed the opening of this play about newspapers for two weeks as it waited for the results of the phone-hacking trial. Is this what a tabloid would call "legal health …
Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London: Theatremaker Tim Crouch makes his main-stage debut at this venue with a new play that explores the world of contemporary art and questions the…
Theatre-maker Tim Crouch has a thing about art. One of his plays, ENGLAND, was performed in art galleries across the world; another was called An Oak Tree, after the 1973 conceptual art piec…
Some days, I feel very sorry for playwrights, especially those that become notorious through no fault of their own. If their most famous play causes enough controversy, it can take decades b…
National Theatre, London: Polly Stenham makes her National Theatre debut, after her runaway success at the Royal Court with That Face and its follow ups, Tusk Tusk and No Quarter. This time,…
Posh hotels are good settings for drama. They look cool, feel alien and can soon acquire a sense of claustrophobic intensity. Most importantly, in real life they feel like stage sets. Playwr…
New writing for British stages has recently delivered several punchy plays that, having made their points, don't hang around for long afterwards. With a running time of 70 minutes, Rachel De…
When I first heard that the new play from Out of Joint was about the NHS I thought this might be a delayed result of the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics: all those prancing nurses su…
A play about belief? I must admit I was immediately intrigued. After all, most of the people I know are either atheists or don't usually talk about a world beyond our own. To use a hackneyed…
How careless are we about the details of our private life? Well, unsurprisingly the answer is "very". To make this point, playwright James Graham explores the subject not only by means of ve…
