322 stories by "John Morrison"
Here are my short reviews of the one per cent of the Edinburgh fringe theatre programme that I saw over the past week. Apologies to the other five hundred shows that I missed. THE WHEEL by Z…
I'm a sucker for theatrical marathons; give me a show that kicks off early and spews its audience back on to the street long after dark. Sometimes the experience can be memorable for all the…
Once more to the Camden Fringe and RADA's George Bernard Shaw theatre for the first night of an intriguing two-act play by my Player-Playwrights friend and colleague Peter Briffa. It's a sop…
Another gem of a play at the Camden Fringe, written by my fellow member of Player-Playwrights, Jan Harris. It's a classic 'odd couple' one-acter involving a faded and sozzled Hollywood star …
Why travel all the way to Edinburgh for fringe theatre when it's happening in London? This is a highly original play by Denise O'Leary which is a moral fable about the dangers of consumerism…
Summertime brings not only copious supplies of fruit and vegetables but a rich choice of theatre treats at a modest cost. The month-long Camden Fringe opened yesterday -- a brilliant alterna…
'Nobody Knows Anything' is the much-quoted verdict on the screen trade by one of the most successful scriptwriters ever, William Goldman. John Patrick Shanley's 1993 play is written from the…
I would love to be positive about this show at the Almeida by a company which has become a symbol of resistance to the dictatorial regime of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, a place that mak…
Some people are never satisfied. The Young Vic, having rebuilt its leaky old building a few years ago, is now recreating the drizzly Connemara weather inside the theatre at vast expense. Tho…
If Joe Orton were still alive, he'd be 78. As his biographer John Lahr wrote, he expected to die young, but he wrote his plays to last. Battered to death by his lover Kenneth Halliwell when …
'Take a letter, Miss Jones.' And so she does. Sixteen-year-old musician's daughter Luise Miller (Felicity Jones) is forced to take up a quill pen and take dictation from the aptly named Wurm…
Time, I think, for a bit of light relief from theatre reviewing. Here is an oh-so-topical extract from the Edwardian classic novel ANTHONY BLAIR CAPTAIN OF SCHOOL. In chapter eight, the new …
Willy Russell's Rita was dead right about the radio being the best place for Peer Gynt, but sometimes radio plays can succeed brilliantly when they're done on stage. This show -- which runs …
I'm a bit worried about Kevin Spacey. His performance as Richard III at the Old Vic deserves all the superlatives which the critics have showered on it, but I hope his back muscles will stan…
Vanishing Olympic tickets are one thing, but can someone explain to me why every single performance at the Donmar Warehouse between now and next February is allegedly sold out? I went to the…
As the bard put it so memorably, Don't You Step On My Blue Suede Shoes. This is the production where Shakespeare meets Elvis, courtesy of that master of theatrical time travel Rupert Goold. …
'We will leave when we win,' says Siward the English general defiantly as the occupation of Scotland, designed to bring the lawless country quickly to peace, stretches on with no end in sigh…
"Do it on the radio" is Rita's memorable response to an exam question about how to stage Ibsen's Peer Gynt. "If they had had the radio in his day, that is where he would have …
Richard Jones is an opera and theatre director for whom the written word is less important than visual and musical impact. I first came across his work in a phantasmagoric Midsummer Night's …
Arnold Wesker is the skeleton in the cupboard of British post-war theatre; still going strong and writing in his late 70s, he has been largely ignored for the last 30 years, rather like the …
I've always been fascinated by 1963, so imagine my delight at finding myself surrounded by a grey-haired National Theatre matinee audience stomping, clapping and shouting their appreciation …
When does getting the audience to laugh turn into self-indulgent playing to the gallery? In the Guardian, Michael Billington, always lukewarm about the kind of theatre he finds at Shakespear…
