149 stories by "Jessica Handscomb"
Review: A Doll's House, Lyric Hammersmith4.0starsHenrik Ibsen's original 1879 play A Doll's House centres on Nora, and her stifling relationship with her husband Torvald. In Tanika Gupta's r…
Review: Refract, King's Head Theatre 2.0stars I think it's fair to say that most of us, at some point in our lives, have uttered the words "It's not what you said, it's how you said it". We …
Review: The Night of the Iguana, Noël Coward Theatre3.0starsIt's September 1940, and Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (Clive Owen) has just arrived at the Costa Verde Hotel. A disgraced pries…
Review: Jesus Christ Superstar, Barbican3.0starsWhat strikes me halfway through the first act of Timothy Sheader's production of Jesus Christ Superstar, is what a truly bizarre subject this …
Review: the end of history..., Royal Court3.0stars'Most mothers threatened to send their kids' food to the starving Africans, she actually did it.' These are the words that Sal's (Lesley Sha…
Review: Present Laughter, The Old Vic5.0starsEmbarrassingly, I had never seen a production of a Noël Coward play before Present Laughter. I had of course read some of his work, and heard …
Review: Brooklyn, Napoli, Park Theatre4.0starsOn 16 December 1960, two planes collided above New York. One landed in Staten Island, the other in Brooklyn. The latter became known as the Park…
Review: Citysong, Soho Theatre3.0starsI think it's fair to say that the Irish are famed for their musical and literary prowess almost as much as they are for their drinking habits and four-l…
Review: The Starry Messenger, Wyndham's Theatre3.0starsIf I have learned anything from The Starry Messenger, it's that watching someone else's mid-life crisis unfold is really quite boring. …
Review: Beneath the Blue Rinse, Park Theatre3.0starsRaise your hand if you've ever had a grandparent be taken advantage of by some sort of salesperson. My hand is raised, and yours probably …
Review: Don't Look Away, Pleasance Theatre 3.0stars Since the Syrian civil war officially began in 2011, we've become increasingly aware of the scale of the subsequent refugee crisis. 5.6 mi…
Review, Avalanche: A Love Story, The Barbican4.0starsIt's mad to think that the first IVF baby was born just over forty years ago. Before then, couples who failed to conceive naturally just …
Review: Shit-Faced Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew, Leicester Square Theatre3.0starsShit-Faced Shakespeare has been absolutely destroying the sanctity of Shakespeare for almost a decade…
Review: Top Girls, Lyttleton, National Theatre 3.0stars In the programme, playwright Caryl Churchill writes "When I wrote Top Girls I imagined 16 women in a play, though I knew I'd be unlike…
Review: Downstate, National Theatre5.0starsDownstate, Bruce Norris' new play, takes place in a group home in Illinois. The residents are Fred (Francis Guinan), Dee (K Todd Freeman), Gio (Gle…
Review: All About Eve, Noël Coward Theatre5.0starsAll About Eve is, somewhat predictably, all about Eve. Eve Harrington (Lily James), in particular – a down and out war widow with a…
Review: My Dad's Gap Year, Park Theatre3.0starsMy Dad's Gap Year " already the title sounds like my idea of a nightmare. Would I want my father to go on a gap year at his ripe old age? Not r…
Review: Songs For Nobodies, Ambassadors Theatre4.0starsJudy Garland, Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday and Maria Callas. How could it be possible that one woman may play all of these i…
Written in 2015, Sweat is Lyndsey Nottage's second Pulitzer Prize winning play, preceded by Ruined, written in 2009. The story is set in Reading, Pennsylvania, an industrial town in which ge…
"Children are being taught they have an inalienable right to be gay. All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life." I was, ignorantly, shocked to hear a recording of thes…
"Christmas time is a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of when men and women open their shut-up hearts freely, and think of people below them as i…
The crumple zone, for those who may not know, is the part of a car designed to take the full force of the impact if and when a collision occurs. It's also the title of Lambco productions' ne…
Juliet Capulet of Shakespeare's world-renowned Romeo & Juliet might be one of, if not the most famous female character ever written for the stage. Countless big names have played her inc…
The Camden People's Theatre never ceases to amaze me with the sheer range of productions they put on. The bizarre and avant-garde can often be found here, and Paid Fantasist is no exception.…
Harold Pinter is considered one of the greatest British playwrights of all time. Producing much of his work in the twentieth century, he wrote 29 full plays alongside poetry and doing plenty…
