1,386 stories by "Aleks Sierz"
When feminism was really cool, female playwrights would write flatshare dramas about a group of women, each of whom was representative of a certain way of life. The play title would just be …
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London: Polly Stenham's third play for the Royal Court - after her award-winning debut That Face (2007) and follow-up Tusk Tusk (2009) - is billed…
Most of us would love to live in a happy family, but it's the unhappy ones that make the most compelling drama. And few playwrights do familial tensions as instinctively as Polly Stenham, wh…
Jerwood Downstairs, Royal Court Theatre, London: Martin Crimp's latest work is his most innovative since his 1997 masterpiece Attempts on Her Life, and the first at this venue since The…
Christmas plays are a seasonal curse of British theatre. But there are alternatives to pantos and Dickens monologues. At the Royal Court Theatre, there is a tradition of more edgy Christmas …
Playwright Martin Crimp defies labels. He has been called obscure and oblique, too difficult and, worst of all, too Continental. But although he is feted on the European mainland " George Be…
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London: One of the great achievements of outgoing artistic director Dominic Cooke's regime at the Royal Court has been his loyalty to some of the …
Is discretion really the better part of valour? This question arises in a particularly acute form in this new play, which looks at Danny, a gay primary school teacher who decides to come out…
Soho Theatre, London: Following its success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year, and again this year, as well as at the Latitude Festival, this all-male version of Anthony Burgess…
Cottesloe, National Theatre, London: Billie Piper plays a star-crossed lover as she makes her debut at the <a href="http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-effect">Nation…
Science thrives on stage. In play after play, various scientific ideas seem to flourish in the warm, well-lit environment of the theatre, fed by a crew of artists and despite the threats of …
London theatre loves plays about the media. Is this because we spend so much time flicking through magazines, visiting websites or watching television? Or is it because this venue's trendy m…
Finding the mythic echoes of the ancient Greeks in stories about the modern world is not just confined to past greats such as TS Eliot, but is also used by contemporary adapters of old trage…
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London: How do you follow a massive success? Playwright Jez Butterworth has had to face that question twice in his career so far. In 1995, his Mojo was…
In the past few years, without any fanfare, the veteran playwright Howard Brenton has not only made a comeback, but also become the chief chronicler of the nation's past. One year he is tell…
Wow, what a lot of debuts. Adrian Lester (Hustle, Bonekickers, Merlin) makes his Tricycle Theatre debut in this new play about a black actor in Regency London, and it's written by his wife, …
Over the past few years, the 1970s have made a cultural comeback. On television, there's been Life on Mars and White Heat, in the bookshops tomes by Dominic Sandbrook, in the theatre revival…
Walkouts are always intriguing. When audience members leave before the final curtain, it's usually a sign that the play is too powerful, or too scandalous or maybe just not very good. After …
The West End seems to be recession-proof, with rising profits, rising ticket prices and few empty theatres. But is this because commercial theatre is becoming increasingly formulaic? How abo…
Bush Theatre, London: Every year, the HighTide Festival in Suffolk helps to develop young playwrights and their latest discovery is Essex-born Vickie Donoghue, whose powerful debut play was …
The popular image of the state-of-the-nation play is that of a large-scale, big-cast drama that has an epic time span and lots of highly articulate speeches that analyse the way we are. But …
In the non-Olympic sport called "Name Britain's greatest living playwright", most of the entries have always been men. Nowadays, that is all changed and the odds-on favourite must be Caryl C…
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London: Some American playwrights are embraced by British theatres, which often produce their work more readily than venues across the Atlantic. Among …
With the American presidential election campaign now in full swing, the search is surely on for cultural expressions of the two nations that the candidates represent: white rich people versu…
After years spent in the dark alleyways of abuse, where the only optimistic light is the sickly glow of neon, some new playwrights are emerging into the sunnier meadows of romantic comedy. T…
