10 stories by "Samantha Ellis"
October 1, 1946: the first night of JB Priestley's play left critics bored and stifling groans"Bang! Bang! Mr Priestley lets drive with both barrels," was the Times's verdict on An Inspector…
Paul Robeson is the first black actor to attempt Othello in a century, at the Savoy Theatre on March 19 1930"A tragedy of racial conflict" was how Paul Robeson summed up Othello as he rehear…
Lionel Bart's 'roaring' rewrite of Dickens gets 23 curtain calls at the New Theatre, June 30 1960When Lionel Bart took on Charles Dickens, he had no plans to be reverential. After all, this…
If this simple gauge of gender inequality in film has Twilight winning over Gravity, there's obviously something wrong. As a feminist playwright, I've found another solutionWhen I discovered…
No one wanted to make a musical about the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee - until they heard about her mother. By Samantha EllisIn 1957 Gypsy Rose Lee was riding high. She was the most famous stripp…
Social propaganda comes to St Martin's Theatre, London, on March 14 1921Clemence Dane, Noël Coward wrote, "manages to wreak more havoc in a small space of time than an army of deli…
Paul Robeson is the first black actor to attempt Othello in a century, at the Savoy Theatre on March 19 1930"A tragedy of racial conflict" was how Paul Robeson summed up Othello as…
Playwrights must make more conscious choices about the characters we writeWhat can playwrights do to get more women on stage? It's a question I wrestle with all the time. According to the mo…
Antony Sher never thought he would be able to stage a Holocaust memoir. He tells Samantha Ellis how Primo Levi won him over Continue reading...
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Joseph becomes a camp classic at the Albery, February 17 1973No one could call this musical an overnight success. In 1965, 20-year-old Tim Rice was introdu…
