461 stories by "Mark Lawson"
A new season of shows, on stage and screen, give a strong sense of deja vu. But are remakes always an artistic upgrade?The top-grossing films of 2016 in the UK are The Jungle Book and B…
Soho theatre, LondonPhoebe Waller-Bridge expertly controls the audience as she performs the original monologue that led to her TV smash It's unusual for the text of a theatrical monologue to…
How do you top a hit play about global politics? By tackling the end of the world " from nuclear meltdown to Brexit and Trump. The writer talks eavesdropping and honestyWomen who go to see a…
From One Man, Two Guvnors to Noises Off and What the Butler Saw, trouser-dropping and door-slamming is back with a vengeance in the West End and on Broadway. How come?On radio phone-ins at t…
The playwright discusses referendum gloom, turning down I'm a Celebrity, and why his third volume of diaries may be his last. Read an extract hereHaving been a Spitting Image puppet, voiced …
Part motivational seminar, part big-budget Blue Peter feature, this somersaulting lecture about human survival is unlike anything on the planetSuspended on wires high above Wembley arena, ru…
London Palladium The Dynasty star treads a line between spontaneity and laziness in the company of her fifth husband and an adoring audienceAlthough the London Palladium is famous for hostin…
The daughter of a Vietnam vet, Suzan-Lori Parks has now written an epic trilogy set during the American civil war. She talks about the military, Obama-era racism and loving Downton AbbeyAs a…
The three-time Pulitzer prize-winning playwright had an extraordinary career trajectory that saw him conquer critics and alcoholism to win more trophiesPerhaps the most remarkable achievemen…
G is for The Goat, L is for lizards and U is for umbrella … As A Delicate Balance returns to Broadway, dip into our guide to the great American playwrightAfter being born " on 12 March 192…
From Dan Brown to Graham Greene, the papacy has long proved fascinating to writers. Mark Lawson examines the mysteries around this powerful figure and the church he leadsThe first duty of a …
After his success with E4's Glue, Thorne is returning to the theatre with Hope, a drama at the Royal Court about local government budget cutsDespite having been up late last Monday night at …
Soho theatre, LondonMaria Alyokhina's dramatisation of artists targeted by Putin is most powerful when it evokes the dark political farce of PinterThe arrest and imprisonment of the Russian …
John Osborne's classic allegory The Entertainer is back. But the UK is now so fragmented that no modern playwright could pen a drama to sum up who we areKenneth Branagh, whose career has oft…
Screenwriters often find themselves in a straitjacket " but comedy shows written for the theatre have free rein to be as foul-mouthed and foul-minded as they like. The world needs more of it…
From the Brexit vote to the US presidential race, the tumult of the year's news shows how nimble " or lucky " artists need to be to stay relevantMost would agree that timing is vital to the …
As previews of the West End show reveal its gasp-inducing illusions, hanky-inducing scenes and Harry as a 40-year-old dad, the producers behind the darkest ever Potter project discuss secrec…
As she prepares to appear in the Young Chekhov trilogy, the star of Last Tango in Halifax and W1A talks about playing outsiders, growing up surrounded by white faces " and how it feels to be…
A lifetime achievement in musical theatre acknowledges Lansbury's prolific career spanning seven decadesPeople like to pass landmark birthdays in meaningful places, so it seems right that Da…
Life with Father, about a sexist patriarch and submissive wife, holds the record for the longest-running non-musical play in New York. Now, 75 years after it premiered, Mark Lawson…
Minerva, ChichesterMark Hayhurst's play about a court-martialled first world war soldier is sharply intelligent and emotionally joltingThe canon of first world war drama is already vast. Mar…
With gift for solitude, and dialogue, prolific award-winning scriptwriter is unusually natural collaborator for Harry Potter playTelevision and theatre playwrights who spend a lot of time al…
Wales Millennium Centre, CardiffThe singer has co-authored a fascinating update on Hans Christian Andersen, pitting her sea nymph against marine pollution and malign capitalismWhile church m…
The playwright was a commercial success, but his works could only have been created in subsidised venuesPeter Shaffer obituaryFew writers achieve the lucrative double of writing an internati…
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonAoife Duffin is an electrifying Kate in Caroline Byrne's splendid Irish version, which injects touches of Yeats, Wilde and Beckett Shakespeare's comedy of Petruchi…
