75 stories by "Ben Dowell"
Royal Albert Hall, London: Rod Stewart, Neil Diamond, One Direction, Girls Aloud, Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams, Andrea Bocelli, Alicia Keys, Placido Domingo and comedians Rhod Gilbert and …
Royal Albert Hall, London: Rod Stewart, Neil Diamond, One Direction, Girls Aloud, Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams, Andrea Bocelli, Alicia Keys, Placido Domingo and comedians Rhod Gilbert and …
Apollo Theatre, London: This all-male production was always going to be notable for the addition of a superstar Malvolio - and Stephen Fry's first performance before London's theat…
Apollo, London: Director Tim Carroll's sensitivity to Shakespeare's preoccupation with the theatricality of his work helps treat West End audiences to a beautifully nuanced, poigna…
Hampstead Theatre, London: Whenever one thinks of the parliamentarians who waged Civil War against their king, one never imagines them in 1940s get-up, tapping on typewriters and flicking in…
Lyttelton, National, London: Howard Barker's 1984 radio play (also revived to some acclaim at the Hackney Empire five years ago) may have been beset by technical difficulties on press n…
Young Vic, London: There are dramatic updates and there are dramatic updates. Controversial Australian director and writer Benedict Andrews effectively punches Chekhov's play full in th…
Hampstead, London: Rupert Everett is an interesting and ultimately successful choice to play Oscar Wilde in this revival of David Hare's 1998 imagining of the great Irish playwright and…
Apollo, London: Hola, los Amigos. Yes, it was only a matter of time before this smash kids TV hit followed all the other smash TV kids hits to the stage. Fortunately there's a real colo…
Vaudeville, London: Volcano is something of a dirty secret - the gossipy tale of the love affairs of Noel Coward's bored, listless and over-privileged Jamaica neighbours, written in exi…
Harold Pinter theatre, London: Befitting its bijou new home, this is a neater, less sprawling Spamalot than the one that opened in Broadway in 2005. It is shorter, has a tighter script (with…
Novello, London: Without the dramatic skills and instincts of long-time collaborator Andy Nyman, the question about Derren Brown's show isn't whether he will guess the right number…
Young Vic: Carrie Cracknell puts Ibsen's far-sighted 1879 exploration of the fault lines in a bourgeois marriage on as literal a stage recreation of a human dolls house as this realist …
Arts, London: Former Labour MP Chris Mullin (Hodgkinson) clearly sees himself as a sincere, idealistic and modest politician, doing his best in a world of realpolitik.
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Bush, London: Louise Delamere's pregnant Amanda, all expensive perfumes and lavish chestnut hair, doesn't want her her rich banker husband (Evans) to swear - she wants to protect t…
35 Marylebone High St: Henry V is probably the one Shakespeare history which doesn't need to remind us that it will contain a bit of soldiering before curtain up. But here we are, usher…
Bush Theatre, London: There seems an obvious logic about turning the Genesis story of Abraham's putative sacrifice (on God's orders) of his son Isaac into a parable about the moder…
Wyndhams, London: Lindsay Posner's production demonstrates that this powerful examination of the snap and crackle of suburban angst and frustration has enough fire in its belly to make …
Harold Pinter, London: The Browning Version, Terence Rattigan's paean to thwarted ambition and stultified passion, is beautifully presented in this new double bill. Rattigan's fami…
Wyndham's, London: There is something a little self-satisfied about any stage production riding on the coat-tails of Oscar glory. And while David Seidler's clever play came before the C…
Almeida, London: As a study in a woman's pain, this revival of De Filippo's 1945 play is at times deeply affecting. Samantha Spiro plays the titular lead, a woman who has raised he…
Young Vic, London: Natalie Dormer does a good line in doomed, haughty young women. She played Anne Boleyn in the lavish TV show The Tudors and here raises her game to an even more acute pitc…
Arts Theatre, London: Our Friends in the North, Billy Elliott, Brassed Off - the north east of England has been fertile territory for state of the nation dramas about working class anger and…
Trafalgar Studios, London: Stefan Golaszewski is perhaps best known for his BBC3 relationship sitcom Him & Her, a modern hymn to youthful monogamy. So the image of Naomi Sheldon's R…
Theatres will benefit from government plans to introduce local television stations because it will make TV advertising affordable to venues and producers for the first time, according to for…
