118 stories by "Jasper Rees"
The sixth artistic director of the National Theatre of Great Britain will be Rufus Norris, it was announced this morning. The bookies' favourites such as Marianne Elliot, Michael Grandage an…
Arnold Wesker has a theory that plays require a certain DNA to endure. When thoughts turn to the 1950s and the revolution in British theatre which allowed ordinary working-class life up onto…
There's a song in the musical version of Legally Blonde, in which peroxide ditz Elle celebrates her impending good fortune. "Oh my god, oh my god, you guys," she sings exultantly as she prep…
Who is Terry Johnson? For a period of two decades between, say, 1982 and 2003, he was predominantly a playwright. He was sufficiently successful at it that for a period in 1995, three of his…
David Frost, who has died at the age of 74, was a character. The oituaries will tour the entirety of his career as swinging young presenter of TW3, as the first transatlantic celebrity of th…
Hysteria is back. Terry Johnson's comedy was written for the Royal Court in 1993, and for its 20th anniversary it is returning to Hampstead Theatre. It is a homecoming in more ways than one.…
Even now, as Edward Snowden floats in the diplomatic neverwhere of Sheremetyevo airport, someone somewhere is plotting the movie. Currently the story of the man who blew the whistle on the N…
There is no formula for creating a hit musical. If there were, the history of the West End and Broadway would not be haunted by the many ghosts of bygone disasters. Let us not list them here…
Circus is a broad church these days. It can be housed on the street, a grand proscenium stage and all points in between, though for this latest raucous reinvention of the form, it makes its …
In recent years theatre has sought assistance from a pair of popular art forms. Shows based either on movies, or on pop groups' back catalogues, have become mainstays of the theatrical econo…
The revival this week at the Donmar Warehouse of The Weir has reminded theatre-goers of Conor McPherson's hypnotic powers as a dramatist. Sitting in the theatre on the first night as, on a w…
Knock knock. Who's there? Eamonn. Eamonn who? Eamonn Etonian. There's an Eamonn at No 10, an Eamonn is Mayor of London, an Eamonn is even Archbishop of Canterbury. Oh, and Eamonns are third …
Mrs Thatcher famously presided over a huge rise in unemployment, but down the years she kept a large sorority of impersonators (and one male one) off the dole. She was lucky with her mimics,…
Richard Griffiths, who has died at the age of 65 from complications during heart surgery, will be remembered above all for three performances, two on screen and one onstage. In Withnail &…
There has always been a keen air of propulsion to the career of James McAvoy. He made his name on television in State of Play and Shameless, while early film roles in Starter for 10 and Insi…
Coalitions make for drama, and for comedy. We know that from, respectively, Borgen and the final series of the Thick of It. It is little wonder therefore that soon after the 2010 election de…
Last weekend it was the 50th anniversary of an important event in postwar Welsh history. In early February 1963 the Welsh Language Society " Cymdeithas yr Iaith Cymraeg " protested for the f…
A Chorus Line is one of the great American musicals. It opened off Broadway in 1975, rapidly barged a path to a larger Broadway house and proceeded to run for over 6,000 performances, breaki…
The generation of alternative comedians who emerged around 30 years ago have long since elbowed their predecessors into the long grass and themselves become the establishment. Of no performe…
The Mayan calendar recently suggested it was all over. It is now, almost. 2012 was, by anyone's lights, an annus mirabilis for culture on these shores. The world came to the United Kingdom, …
Success can be a terrible burden. Wonderful while it lasts, once the applause has petered out, the looks have faded and the fame has dwindled, what do the stars of yesteryear have to live fo…
In 1972 John Kander and Fred Ebb were invited by Bob Fosse to a private screening of his film version of their hit stage musical, Cabaret. The movie starred their protégée, Liza Minnelli, …
Michael Frayn (b 1933) has been having an annus mirabilis. The play the hapless actors of Noises Off are touring is called Nothing On. In the playwright's case, almost everything has been on…
"People think you're dead. No one knows you're alive." A couple of years ago Roger Rees suffered the harshest judgement available to an actor when someone put these words to him. The actor i…
Is Steptoe and Son the platonic ideal of the British sitcom? Two men trapped in eternal stasis, imprisoned by class and bound together by family ties as if by hoops of steel, never to escape…
