Mark St Germain's play Freud's Last Session, first seen Off-Broadway in 2010 and now receiving its European premiere at London's King's Head Theatre, pits two of the 20th-century greatest th…
I love Christmas. But for the past several years, I have struggled to summon the Christmas cheer that used to kick in for me the day after Thanksgiving (or, after so many years in the UK, by…
I was fascinated by the story behind the play telling the story behind the film. The Shark Is Broken is the brainchild of Ian Shaw who co-wrote it and stars as his own late father Robert Sha…
At my last Christmas Q&A at the Pleasance Theatre, for sci-fi spoof Escape from Planet Trash way back in December 2019, Ginger Johnson shared a tantalising teaser about her idea for her …
Junior doctor turned multi-award-winning writer and comedian Adam Kay returns to the stage this festive season with a reminder to spare a thought for the hard-working staff of the NHS as we …
Here's the brutal truth about many of our rights: we only really have them if we have the wherewithal to fight for them when they're trampled on. That's certainly the case when it comes to e…
After How to Catch a Krampus and Escape from Planet Trash, Ginger Johnson and her merry band of drag queens return to The Pleasance with a new alternative Christmas show, Dog Show. And I'm b…
Here's a sobering statistic: 2,000 pubs closed during lockdown. Lost forever. The scale of that loss really struck me when I heard performer and (brilliant) poet Ben Norris recite it during …
There are some shows with modest beginnings that seem to have all of the industry behind them, willing them to succeed. Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of)Â is one of them. The post Pride &a…
More than four centuries after William Shakespeare died in 1616, aged 52 on his own birthday (23 April), questions remain about the authorship of his prodigious output - including nearly for…
As much as it was possible for anyone the arts, Northern Comedy Theatre had a very good pandemic. When all performing arts venues closed, rather than wrap up their work, they ramped up. The …
The big moral question at the heart of Indecent Proposal is: what are you willing to do for $1 million? More specifically: would you have sex for a stranger if they paid you $1 million? The …
Anton Chekhov is, of course, best known for his "big five" classic plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. None of which, though the author himself lab…
The premise of The Picture of Dorian Gray has become so much a part of our culture that most people will recognise the reference even if they've never read Oscar Wilde's original 1890 novell…
As part of her resumed post-show talk series, Mates founder Terri Paddock will chair a discussion following the evening performance of James Woolf's new play Empty in Angel at London's Old R…
As part of her resumed post-show talk series, Mates founder Terri Paddock will chair a discussion following the performance of Lidless Theatre's tenth-anniversary revival of Philip Ridley's …
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has released details of its Spring 2022 activity including Shakespeare returning to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre stage and the announcement of a ground-b…
As part of her resumed post-show talk series, Mates founder Terri Paddock will chair a discussion following the performance of Mercurius Theatre's revival of Anton Chekhov's Vaudevilles, ada…
Mates founder Terri Paddock will chair a post-show discussion for the London premiere of The Tragedy of Dorian Gray, Blue Devil Theatre's updating of Oscar Wilde's classic, at the Drayton Ar…
Maximus Polling reprises his titular performance as the ever-youthful Dorian in Blue Devil Theatre's award-winning adaptation, transferring to Drayton Arms Theatre from 19 October.
How far would you go to right a wrong? Terri Paddock discussed with the cast and creatives of Robert Boulton's debut play Snowflakes after a performance at the Old Red Lion Theatre.
This is not a project born of outsiders wanting to cash in, but rather a long-held ambition, some 16 years in the making, of Back to the Future's creators. The post Back to the Future: Nosta…
How far would you go to right a wrong? Robert Boulton's debut play Snowflakes explores how public outrage might spiral into not just violent vigilantism but also a digital goldrush. The post…
Apart from it being a charming public park and one of my dog's favourite destinations for our daily walks, I have always been fascinated by history of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, near my home…
There's a line in The Last Five Years, Jason Robert Brown's semi-autobiographical musical two-hander about a relationship breakdown, that gets me every time. The post The Last Five Years: Th…