2,441 stories by "Michael Billington"
The Mad King may bring more dynastic disputes and dotty despots to the RSC – but a ‘mayhap’ or a riddling aphorism does not a Shakespeare play makeAs a latecomer to Game of Thrones, I …
Gill’s dramas of divided class loyalties such as The York Realist had a clear-eyed precision matched by his rigorous work as a directorPeter Gill, playwright who turned ordinary lives into…
The actor’s sophisticated sense of humour and natural ability to make everyone laugh were there long before her famous sitcom rolesA life in picturesPenelope Keith: the most spectacular si…
Helen Hunt and Kristin Scott Thomas are leading revivals of the Russian classic whose blend of comedy and tragedy is baked into our own dramatic heritageWhat kind of play is The Cherry Orcha…
Plaque installed at actor’s former home in Pimlico, central London, where he lived from the age of five to 12Laurence Olivier has joined David Garrick, Henry Irving, Oscar Wilde and Noël …
Over his kaleidoscopic career, the great Shakespearean was a stalwart of the RSC, co-founded a ‘rock’n’roll’ theatre company and excelled at Chekhov and PinterMichael Pennington was …
From the Dome of Discovery to the massive cigar-shaped Skylon, the spectacular cultural showcase was an exhilarating sight in 1951. The Tories demolished those prime exhibits yet, 75 years o…
Antony and Cleopatra? Exhausting. Lear? Magnificent but flawed. Hamlet? Limitless. For Shakespeare’s birthday, the Guardian’s former theatre critic ranks all the plays***35 Continue read…
After the death of his husband, Antony Sher, the former RSC director embarks on a quest to see every First Folio
This is really two books in one. The first part consists of the diaries writt…
The great Italian entertainer's plays, such as Accidental Death of an Anarchist, have not lost their power to make audiences roar with laughter while confronting injustice
In Britain we tend…
Revivals of this history play usually reflect the politics of the moment. Now a fresh RSC retelling arrives in a world of instability and fractured alliances
I have long argued that Shakespe…
As the writer turns 80, his masterful adaptation of the French novel is being revived at the National Theatre. It highlights his lifelong interest in political power play
I once dubbed Chris…
The director, who has died aged 98, permanently changed the landscape of British theatre by creating the Young Vic " and it reflected his own energetic and ever innovative nature
Frank Dunl…
The Twelfth Night Reunion gathers some of the grandest names in British theatre, including Simon Callow and Stephen Fry, to explain why Shakespeare's play continues to bewitch audiences
Many…
Rattigan hoped his 1954 tale about a swindler who exploits his son's sexual allure would prove him a serious dramatist. Its scandalous story reveals much about the playwright and resonates f…
The self-described 'bounced Czech' created cerebral works centred by a core of genuine emotion " and always understood the ways of our world
All the best dramatists extend the frontiers of d…
Its 1981 New York premiere was a disaster but this told-in-reverse musical became a Tony award-winning hit with Daniel Radcliffe. The film version is a tear-jerking joy
I have made enough mi…
In his first hit play, now receiving another starry revival, the celebrated dramatist's analysis of the American psyche is steeped in European tradition
The British theatre's long love affai…
His parable of collective social responsibility is a hardy classic but the Yorkshire playwright's wider legacy should not be neglected
How on earth does one sum up JB Priestley? He wrote 39 …
The actor best known as TV's Sybil Fawlty dazzled over five decades on stage, in roles from from Shakespeare to Alan Bennett ' Fawlty Towers actor Prunella Scales dies at the age of 93
Prune…
When it opened in 1985, Les Mis got some rotten reviews. Forty years on, our writer sees it afresh and Cameron Mackintosh reflects on the show's spectacular success
So were we wrong? By "we"…
The versatile star, who has died aged 96, portrayed absurdly pretentious and apparently grotesque characters with wonderful sympathy
Patricia Routledge was an actor of uncommon versatility e…
Following in the footsteps of Peter Hall and Katie Mitchell, Indhu Rubasingham directs an ancient epic at the National Theatre. Bacchae reveals the virtues and vices of creating a new play f…
The tragedy's mythic quality appeals to adapters the world over but the Japanese film-maker's Ran, now rereleased, manages to solve the play's problems
I have long had mixed feelings about K…
Vera; or, The Nihilists concerns a plot to kill a tsar but after Alexander II was assassinated, its London premiere was cancelled. Now receiving a rare production, it captures his conflict b…
