2,441 stories by "Michael Billington"
Versatile actor and writer often called upon to play toffs and bumbling clericsThe actor Jonathan Cecil, who has died of pneumonia aged 72 after suffering from emphysema, spent much of his …
Versatile actor and writer often called upon to play toffs and bumbling clerics Continue reading...
St Giles' Cripplegate, LondonI've no doubt that this Jericho House production acquired enormous political resonance when it toured recently to Jerusalem, Haifa and the West Bank. It is, afte…
Cottesloe, LondonAn air of mystery surrounds any new Mike Leigh project. Like a dedicated scientist, he works behind closed doors researching with his chosen team: his latest experiment didn…
Richmond, London"This show contains loud bangs and adult themes," warns a notice outside the theatre. In fact I detected few of either in a play, based by Gill Adams on a book by Christine K…
Judith Miller's switch from political correspondent to playhouse pundit has caused a stir, but surely it's not a bad thing for critics to know about the world at largeIn the early 70s there …
Crucible, SheffieldIt's been billed in advance as a classic encounter between two stars of The Wire, Clarke Peters and Dominic West. But what first impresses about this much-touted event is …
Print Room, LondonThese two short Pinter plays are here presented as an almost seamless event. Both, in fact, are set in a bleak, white-walled, fluorescent-lit room that suggests an interrog…
Octagon, BoltonIt is always good to find dramatists widening their horizons, and Stella Feehily's new play, which deals with humanitarian workers operating in the midst of a Congolese civil …
Vaudeville, LondonArthur Miller's 1994 play towers over the dismal lowlands of current West End theatre like a majestic mountain peak. Part psychological detective story and part political d…
Almeida Theate, LondonStephen Poliakoff is back with his first new play in 12 years. But, while I welcome his return, this piece feels like an anthology of Poliakoff's recurring preoccupatio…
Minerva, ChichesterIt takes a certain wild courage to write an accompaniment to an acknowledged one-act masterpiece like Terence Rattigan's The Browning Version. But David Hare has taken on …
Hampstead theatre, LondonSteve Thompson is a very funny writer who has here chosen a tricky subject: the 1975 legal battle by members of the Monty Python team over a US network's censorious …
As Alan Ayckbourn's 75th play, Neighbourhood Watch, opens in Scarborough, test your knowledge of Britain's most prolific and popular dramatistMichael Billington
Stephen Joseph, ScarboroughOne of Alan Ayckbourn's least appreciated qualities is the sharpness of his social antennae. At the very moment when there is a lot of political babble about a "br…
Southwark Playhouse, LondonJessica Swale made a big impact last year with a stunning production of Sheridan's The Rivals in Southwark. Now she's back with a comedy by Hannah Cowley that Sher…
St Katharine Docks, LondonFact or fiction? Which is the best way for the theatre to handle an event as momentous as 9/11? That is the question implicitly raised by this site-specific show, w…
Oliver, LondonArnold Wesker's tremendous 1959 play expanded the frontiers of drama in that it was one of the first to seriously dramatise work. But, while it is always good to see it revived…
As the National Theatre serves up a revival of Arnold Wesker's 1959 play The Kitchen, we grill you about the man and his workMichael Billington
Theatre Royal HaymarketThe Tempest, as Anne Barton once pointed out, is an obliging work of art. It can be seen, among myriad other things, as anti-colonialist tract, theatrical metaphor and…
Royal Court, LondonI would say debbie tucker green has carved out her own special niche at the Royal Court: partly through her insistence on lower-case name and titles, but more significantl…
Orange Tree, RichmondThis is the 12th Václav Havel production Sam Walters has staged in the Orange Tree's 40-year history. While such loyalty is admirable and the play itself dates from t…
Royal Court, LondonAlexi Kaye Campbell has previously written two impressive plays, The Pride and Apologia, about the way gay rights and feminism have lost something of their initial idealis…
Theatre Royal, BathDavid Haig rightly gets a standing ovation as the sad, dubiously mad Hanoverian Lear. But, although Alan Bennett deserves credit for putting the character on stage, I can'…
The plays of NF 'Wally' Simpson, who has died aged 92, were hilariously subversive, yet masked a deeply philosophical mindThe comic dramatist NF Simpson, who has died at the ripe old age of …
