Ahead of next month's festival, the city's performing arts economy faces uncertain future amid funding cuts, wage stagnation and lack of business acumen The Edinburgh festival fringe has alw…
Royal Court, LiverpoolSet in a covent and a prison, Jonathan Harvey's knockabout new play is full of sledgehammer innuendo Jonathan Harvey's new play could make even the least pious nun clu…
Testosterone-soaked clowning show Furiozo: Man Looking for Trouble spikes fun with fear " but the hooligan's knife-edge moments of vulnerability lead us somewhere different Clowning is about…
Soho theatre, LondonLenoir's mischievous charm is infectious, and she plays with skill on the heartstrings and funny bones Clowning may be silly, but it is seldom, these days, insubstantial.…
Hampstead theatre, LondonChristopher Hampton's sleek adaptation of Stefan Zweig's 1922 novella adds elements of the Austrian writer's own life Letter from an Unknown Woman is perhaps Stefan …
Crucible, SheffieldThe perseverance of runners Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell is well conveyed with stage and auditorium becoming training ground and racetrack Sheffield Theatres has reviv…
Fangirl celebrates the obsessive followers of a band closely resembling One Direction. 'It really does question where the boundaries are,' says its creator It's March 2015 and a bombshell ha…
Roundhouse, LondonThe acrobatic blockbuster is a night out loaded with set pieces and special effects but feels designed for digital bursts on social media Fuerza Bruta's Aven is not just a …
Ripe language and impish humour abound as Barbara Flynn reads the actor's entertaining recollections of seven decades on stage " and Dench herself recites excerpts from the Bard Anyone who s…
Lyceum Theatre, New York A wild and wildly anachronistic comedy takes the life of Mary Todd Lincoln and embellishes with excess The real Mary Todd Lincoln was, by most accounts, erratic, oft…
As a veteran of the festival, Richard Gadd captures the mix of heady promise and bleak reality that awaits another influx of acts this summer Nothing prepares you for performing at the Edinb…
After six years at Pitlochry, the admired director known for 'big-hearted theatre work' takes reins at major producing centre Sheffield Theatres have appointed Elizabeth Newman as artistic d…
Arcola theatre, LondonMartha Loader's award-winning play is an assured portrait of a therapy group for men who have abused women He seems nice, at first. Then you learn what he's done. Grapp…
We need to keep open offbeat DIY spaces that belong to artists and communities. Even if the odd performance sells zero tickets, they push theatre forward It feels like a lifetime ago. In 201…
Watermill theatre, NewburyThe story is thin and slow to emerge but the actor-musicians and acrobats deliver the 1980 circus musical with gusto The circus begins outside with fire-eating, jug…
Noël Coward theatre, LondonKit Harington and Olivia Washington star in a charged, often comical drama about the legacy of historical racial violence in three couples' sexual dynamics What…
Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonThe hot pink shoes, tights and feathers are wonderful, but this update of the 1777 comedy has no satirical bite beneath its enormous wigs The ca…
More than 250 works by 40 stage talents are on display in London for an impressively wide-ranging event that supports the Theatre Artists Fund A couple of years ago, two fine actors, Nancy C…
Southwark Playhouse Elephant, LondonSoulful anthems with hard-knock lyrics cover 150 years of British care system history in a sophisticated show from Lung theatre company We're a long way f…
Nandy says her department will prioritise celebrating British culture and a less divisive vision of the UK The "era of culture wars is over", Lisa Nandy has promised in her first speech as c…
Is it gatekeeping or dream-making? Art or science? As the Oscars get set to award casting directors for the first time, British theatre's finest share the secrets of their trade The popular …
Hampstead theatre, LondonIn Sarah Power's emotionally acute three-hander, 17-year-old Bo struggles to keep her father's alcoholism a secret from her new college friend It's a familiar parent…
After the Tory years of underfunding, BBC-baiting and culture wars, nothing less than the soul of the nation is in the surprise new minister's hands Of all those in Keir Starmer's new cabine…
Oldham council pledges £10m to refurbish theatre after campaign led by actor Julie Hesmondhalgh Oldham's historic Coliseum theatre has been saved from closure, after a successful campaign…
Yevgeniya Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk's charges were based on play about women marrying jihadists in Syria A Russian military court has sentenced a playwright and a theatre director t…