3,507 stories from The Arts Desk
Zoe Cooper's queer reading is a tonic: clever, funny and seriously silly
What Zoe Cooper has concocted in her loving rewiring of Jane Austen's first completed novel looks at first sight like…
London transfer for the Royal Shakespeare Company's riotous comedy Western
At its best theatre is a seducer. It weaves a magic spell that can persuade you, perhaps against your better judge…
Gothic excess mingles with more modern themes in a one-man transformation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella
Evil walks among us. But it doesn't arrive courtesy of mad scientists, bubbling …
★★★★ KIN, NATIONAL THEATRE The power of physical theatre to tell the story of migration
Unconventional and thrilling, this Gecko Theatre project will live long in …
Forgotten play by the author of Tom & Viv is realistic, but lacks dramatic focus
British Theatre abounds in forgotten writers. And in ones whose early work is too rarely revived. One su…
★★★ THE GOOD JOHN PROCTOR, JERMYN STREET THEATRE Witch Hunt play fails to fly
An overdue response to 'The Crucible', but very much rooted in its place, if not its time
I…
Poltergeist activity in the suburbs remains earth-bound
Reports of supernatural events are always met with either willing belief or dismissive scepticism. The "camps" generally don't have mu…
★★★★ 1979, FINBOROUGH THEATRE Comedy-drama set in 1970s Canadian politics proves much more interesting than it sounds!
There's fun and profundity in the thick of Otta…
The National Theatre fielded hit after hit, and smaller venues scored as well
Wait, and your wishes are answered. That seemed to be the case during the theatre year just gone, following on f…
Jonathan Spector is a Stoppard fan, but might Mamet have been better?
How do you make a play out of Stalin's defecting daughter Svetlana, the psycho-economic theories of Daniel Kahneman and …
Jack Thorne's backstage Gielgud-Burton 'Hamlet' drama is full of compassion
Plays about the theatre tend to go down well with audiences. Why wouldn't they? The danger is that they become too…
Les Enfants Terribles can't work their usual magic at the QEH
There are probably two distinct audiences for the latest adaptation from Les Enfants Terribles, The House with Chicken Legs: the…
Nina Raine's revival of Tom Stoppard's 2006 epic rocks, but also stumbles
There is a song by Syd Barrett, founder member of Pink Floyd, called "Golden Hair". It's on his album The Madcap Lau…
Monsters of ego clash in David Ireland's demolition of posturing theatre types
David Ireland's Edinburgh Fringe hit Ulster American is essentially a play about a play that a Hollywood big…
The Netflix hit broadens its beguiling story with this thrilling, high-powered stage production
Stranger Things has shown us over four seasons that the alternate dimension known as the Upsid…
Grit, authenticity and raucous comedy in a five-woman soccer show
You can keep your Cinderellas, your Aladdins, your wannabe Lord Mayors of London. The way forward with Christmas shows is cl…
Beautiful Elvis Costello songs and stirring music underpin a fine adaptation
There's a touch of Dr Zhivago about director PaweÅ‚ Pawlikowski's screenplay for his 2018 film Cold War. It…
★★★★ A WOMAN WALKS INTO A BANK, THEATRE503 Russian tale resonates far beyond Moscow
Roxy Cook's dramedy has echoes of Chekhov in its melding of comedy and tragedy
We'…
★★★ PANDEMONIUM, SOHO THEATRE Armando Iannucci finds some laughs but nothing fresh
If you're ready for more gags about Boris Johnson's House of Horrors administration, t…
Stephen Sondheim's fascinating 1976 show enriches aurally and, this time round, visually
This is, by my reckoning at least, the third major London production over the years of Pacific Overt…
Chris Thorpe's one-man show about nuclear weapons is intelligent and humane
Let's start with what we know: the climate emergency is the single most burning question facing the planet. Our li…
Unsettling investigation of patriarchal family and sexual relationships has uneven force
As the audience enters, thick mist envelopes the thrust stage and jazz music fills the theatre. The s…
Terrific showcase for writer-director Kwame Owusu and his performer
Kwame Owusu's 55-minute one-hander does just what it says on the tin: it features a young student who dreams he is drowni…
★★★★★ £1 THURSDAYS, FINBOROUGH THEATRE Beautifully delivered by two sensational leadsÂ
Seldom does one see a writer's vision so perfectly realised on stag…
Annie Baker delivers a richly satisfying piece about hungry women
A sun deck with seven pale-green padded loungers is the latest setting for the latest National Theatre premiere from Ame…