1,386 stories by "Aleks Sierz"
Tricycle Theatre, London: Director Polly Teale and Shared Experience return to the Tricycle with a beautifully crafted new play by award-winning playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell, who wrote his…
One of the promises of artistic director Nicholas Hytner when he took the helm of this flagship ten years ago was to stage new and innovative musicals. His problem, of course, is that these …
I love poetic play titles, but even I would admit that sometimes they are difficult to remember. In this case, the name of Brad Birch's new play has taught me a lesson that I'm happy to pass…
Bush Theatre, London: After a career as an actor and scriptwriter, New Yorker Ayad Akhtar turned to playwriting and his debut, which premiered in Chicago in 2012, was a huge success. It tran…
There's one big problem about being an Asian actor in America " you just don't get the big parts. So the multitalented Ayad Akhtar put acting on hold, and turned to screen writing, producing…
Rikki Beadle-Blair is a high-energy polymath. He's a real phenomenon. Raised by his lesbian mum in sarf London, he wrote his first play at the age of seven and was, he claims, already direct…
Most theatre directors produce work which is visually the same as everyone else's. Katie Mitchell doesn't. Her plays are always brilliantly acted, highly atmospheric and often use film media…
Scandi thrillers have a lot to answer for. Ever since the small-screen success of the Swedish Wallander series, based on the books by Henning Mankell, there has been a host of other must-see…
Some plays are game-changers. When Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing opened at the tiny Bush Theatre in 1993 the joy that radiated off the stage was ample affirmation that this tale of puppy…
The Shed, National Theatre, London: The National Theatre's new space, The Shed, a square construction painted bright red, is located just outside its main entrance in Theatre Square. A …
The family can be a knot of hatred as well as a cradle of love. Rather late in this new play by Tanya Ronder comes a scene in which a separated husband and wife try to untangle this knot, an…
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London: As it was in the beginning, so shall it be at the end: Anthony Neilson's masterpiece, The Wonderful World of Dissocia, was part of artisti…
Anthony Neilson is the wild man of new writing. However, this reputation, which has been provoked by shock-fests such as Penetrator (1993) and Stitching (2002), belies the fact that some of …
Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain, is a cultural icon, the image of the peroxide blonde who spells big trouble. An influence on Diana Dors in the 1956 film Yield to the Nigh…
Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Royal Court, London: This is the last production that Dominic Cooke is directing at this venue before he steps down as artistic director next month. It is an apt …
"My honest instinct," says Jim, the hero of Bruce Norris's The Low Road, "is one of resentment." And while this contemporary fable of industrious bees, aka capitalist speculators, is set in …
The best horror stories take place in mundane surroundings. The envelope of the ordinary gives a context of credibility to the practically incredible. In Janice Okoh's new play, which won th…
Legendary English playwright Edward Bond doesn't often come to Malta, but when he does, he doesn't suffer fools gladly. After the first performance of his Olly's Prison " a stage version of …
Royal Court, Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London: The most common complaint about plays that criticise the austerity measures that have followed the global financial meltdown is that they don…
Is this the most poetic title in London theatre today? Anders Lustgarten's new play joins a ragged march of work, from David Hare's The Power of Yes (2009) to Clare Duffy's Money: The Gamesh…
Plays about plays are often touched by theatrical magic. This is certainly the case with Timberlake Wertenbaker's masterpiece, first staged in 1988, and now revived by the same director, Max…
Eclipse Theatre Company's artistic director Dawn Walton talks to Aleks Sierz about her latest project, a revival of Don Evans' 1970s comedy analysis of racial and gender stereotypes, One Mon…
Lyttelton, National Theatre: Today, when long-term playwright-director partnerships are rare, it is a cause for celebration when a writer and a director work together over several years. Pla…
Over the past decade or so, Simon Stephens has emerged as one of Britain's premier playwrights. As well as being a prolific penman, with three volumes of collected plays already in print, he…
Gate Theatre, London: This is the first time the work of US playwright Rajiv Joseph, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, has been seen in the UK. Directed by Justin Audibert, who is this year's r…
