In the past month, two musicals have got me up on my feet and dancing all the way out to the bar. At Five Guys Named Moe, I joined a conga line at the interval after attempting to singalo…
In the past month, two musicals have got me up on my feet and dancing all the way out to the bar. At Five Guys Named Moe, I joined a conga line at the interval after attempting to singalo…
How do we talk to those that we hate? How do we speak across the anger that divides us? Those are the opening lines in Chris Hannan‘s provocative new play, What Shadows –…
I've had a rich few weeks for playgoing. In addition to productions I've already written about elsewhere " including, of those still running, Arrows and Traps' Frankenstein at Brockley Jack …
If, like me, you're stuck at your desk today and can't follow the National Theatre 2018 season press briefing quite as closely as you'd like to, I've rounded up all today's key announcements…
Living in SE1 in London, I’m absolutely spoilt for theatres. The South Bank powerhouses of the National Theatre, Old Vic and Young Vic, Shakespeare’s Globe, and, as of later this…
There are only a few days left to catch Che Walker‘s new in-the-round production of John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, which finishes at London’s Southwark Playhouse this Sat…
There was a moment I’ll never forget from the Q&A I hosted after last night’s performance of Stephen Clark‘s Le Grand Mort at Trafalgar Studios. Julian Clary, who is of…
Sales of George Orwell’s 1984 surged by a staggering 9,500% after the election of Donald Trump to become Amazon’s biggest seller. Orwell himself died, at the age of 46, …
I had my own Godotesque moment to start last night’s Waiting for Godot Q&A. The stage was bare. Where were the chairs? Was anyone bringing chairs? How long would we be waiting f…
What do you need to know about Dominic Cooke‘s revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies at the National Theatre? It’s a great big, sumptuous, stellar hit. I was lucky enough t…
Did you get lucky in the ticket ballot for #RADAHamlet, which on Twitter has also gained the predictable #HiddleHamlet hashtag thanks to its title star, Tom Hiddleston? The fundraising produ…
The plays may have been written 420-odd years apart, but I was really struck  by how many parallels there were between the discussion I hosted last week, to the European premiere of Jorda…
Having heard so many of My Theatre Mates raving about Late Company following its European premiere earlier this year at the Finborough, I was really looking forward to seeing it at Trafal…
It’s not just umbrella festival programmes, as I blogged earlier, that keep myself and other London theatregoers busy in August. Here’s a round-up of some of the other plays and …
I’m in the slightly odd position this month of working on an Edinburgh show while not being in Edinburgh at all. (Mind you, I have seen the show, in China in May, so can knowledgeably …
Two years ago, I chaired the opening night discussion at the third annual From Page to Stage festival of new musicals founded by Aria Entertainment’s Katy Lipson. The central questi…
Most of nights last week was devoted to just one play, Preethi Nair’s Sari: The Whole Five Yards, which I’m trying to help find a future life. But I have managed a few memorable …
My plays diary this week isn’t terribly varied. I’m spending most nights at the Tristan Bates Theatre, all in aid of one production: Preethi Nair‘s Sari: The Whole Five …
The King's Head Theatre attracted widespread coverage this week for its announcement that it is moving out of the King's Head pub on Upper Street in Islington, north London, its home for the…
I've had issues with sleep " or rather lack of sleep " since I was a teenager. I won't be an insomnia bore and tell you ALL of the so-called remedies I've tried over the years, including sev…
Is Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew inherently misogynistic? Particularly with its treatment of spirited Kate, the Shrew of the title, who is starved and mentally tormented (gasli…
It’s always a real privilege to have the playwright involved when you’re chairing a post-show Q&A. But when the play is also based on the playwright’s own best-se…
Before I attended King Kong, Daniel Clarkson‘s bonkers stage parody of the 1933 film classic, last week at The Vaults, I never knew there was such a thing as a nose flute. Now I will n…
How many creatives does it take to make a one-man musical? The answer can be “quite a few”. And that it is in the case of SUPERHERO, the British one-man – or rathe…