2,439 stories by "Michael Billington"
Finborough theatre, London Six dead men do not want to be buried in Irwin Shaw's expressionist but schematic anti-war play from 1936You can applaud a play's intentions without enjoying its e…
Royal Court, LondonGenerational friction, slavery laws and police protocol all come under scrutiny in a stirring three-part study of oppressionAs she showed in her plays hang (2015) and trut…
Orange Tree theatre, RichmondThis revival gains an eerie topicality, yet its ingenious study of moneyed hypocrisy makes it truly timelessBy an extraordinary quirk of fate, Martin Crimp's 198…
The Other Palace, LondonEx-service personnel work alongside professional actors in Jonathan Lewis's ingenious piece of meta-theatreWritten and directed by Jonathan Lewis, this is a play abou…
The playwright's imagined confrontation with the political activist he was 50 years ago is a triumph of confessional courage " and relentless optimismWhat happened to the Sgt Pepper generati…
Hampstead theatre, LondonThe Game of Thrones star plays a surly death-haunted 17-year-old whose life is changed by a book of poems and an unlikely friendshipScarcely known in Britain, Lauren…
Bridge theatre, LondonJim Broadbent is brilliantly buffoonish and sadistic in Martin McDonagh's wildly inventive dismantling of the great Danish storytellerMartin McDonagh's new play is calc…
Almeida, London This parasitic rewrite treats a masterpiece as a lecture and totally overlooks Ibsen's elusive comedyIf you want an example of the arrogance of director's theatre, head to th…
Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonVirtuoso percussionist Evelyn Glennie provides a soundscape for Gregory Doran's futuristic production Expectation whirls me round, to borrow a p…
Dorfman, LondonPlaying a single woman determined to have a child, Claudie Blakley lights up a new play by the Consent dramatistA character in Nina Raine's vibrant new play points out that th…
Gielgud theatre, London Rosalie Craig and Patti LuPone star in Marianne Elliott's reimagining of the musical about marriage and the single lifeA gender change can work wonders. It is no secr…
Natural History Museum, LondonCharles Darwin's adventures aboard the HMS Beagle are told through engrossing puppetry and painterly projectionsThis is an unusual enterprise. The museum's Jerw…
Donmar Warehouse, LondonJosie Rourke directs an ingenious production starring Hayley Atwell and Jack Lowden, giving us Shakespeare's play twiceThere are no half measures in Josie Rourke's pr…
Lyttelton, LondonHare's state-of-the-nation drama pricks the mind and is supported by strong performances but it lacks momentumDavid Hare has acute antennae and in his 17th new play for the …
Wyndham's, LondonJonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins excel in Florian Zeller's beautifully elusive play, translated by Christopher HamptonThe one sure fact about a play by Florian Zeller is tha…
Young Vic, LondonThe artistic director opens his first season with a festive, expertly choreographed production but it misses Shakespeare's blend of laughter and sadnessKwame Kwei-Armah open…
Smock Alley, Dublin Annie Ryan provides a new perspective on Arthur Miller's short story and film in this brooding, intelligent showAnnie Ryan, who successfully adapted A Girl Is a Half-Form…
Gate/Abbey theatre, DublinYaël Farber's Hamlet offers freshly minted thrills, while Aaron Monaghan brings demonic glee to the role of Richard IIIShakespeare, unusually, dominates the two …
Wilton's Music Hall, LondonGraham and eight previously unproduced writers present stories that capture the oddity and excess of the capital Inspired by Charles Dickens' Sketches by Boz, Jame…
Menier Chocolate Factory, London Finty Williams excels in the role first played by her mother, Judi Dench, in Hugh Whitemore's slow-burning spy storyThis slow-burning play by Hugh Whitemore …
Rose theatre, KingstonKeith Allen excels as the embittered old painter in the second of Nick Dear's two plays following the life of William HogarthThere is a palpable irony to the umbrella t…
Harold Pinter theatre, London Antony Sher, David Suchet and Hayley Squires are among the cast for a compelling set of works by the master playwrightJamie Lloyd has had the bold, bright idea …
Olivier, London Simon Godwin directs a terrific and epic National Theatre production, filled with passion and delusionThis is the third production of Shakespeare's tragedy on the Olivier sta…
Birmingham RepCharles Lawson is on fine form as a retired John Rebus but the novelist's Edinburgh underworld is missingYou can see the temptation to bring Ian Rankin's rumpled sleuth John Re…
Park theatre, LondonKaren Archer gives a fine performance as a woman experiencing cognitive difficulties in Sharr White's playHow do you dramatise dementia? Not easily. But Sharr White, in a…
