Jermyn Street theatre, LondonThe novelist's debut play depicts the true story of Lady Anne Tree's determination to bring needlecraft to prisoners The novelist Esther Freud (Hideous Kinky) ha…
I want Left My Desk to be serious but also seriously entertaining as it challenges the negative view of the professionWhy are there so many negative depictions of social work in popular ente…
The talent show success of the standup comedian, who has cerebral palsy, will help normalise disability far more than any charity campaignOver the years, various formulas have proved success…
Soho, LondonDressed in his warmest coat, his stash of pickles and crisps already eaten, four-year-old Ivan stands in a rubbish dump, gazing hungrily at a hole in the ground. Perhaps a woman …
Chichester Festival theatre Despite its pitch-perfect lead, this version of Enid Bagnold's class comedy lacks the emotionally charged edginess that gives it biteThe Chalk Garden is Enid Bagn…
State cinema, Leith In an atmospheric derelict venue, the Golden Trailer Collective explore anti-terror detentions in a play that could commit more to its eccentricitiesA cuckoo festival wit…
Sadler's Wells, LondonKhan's final solo performance, as an Indian ex-soldier reliving the horror of the trenches, is a dazzling test of enduranceIn Greek mythology, the Titan Prometheus stol…
Royal Exchange, ManchesterMaxine Peake shines as Winnie " but the production isn't quite what Beckett orderedTo fit Samuel Beckett's 1961 play on to the round stage of the Exchange, Sarah Fr…
Olivier; Harold Pinter; Finborough, LondonNot understanding speaks volumes in Ian Rickson's tremendous new production of Brian Friel's 1980 classic. And Nina Raine's unflinching Consent tran…
Maggie Smith is often seen as austere, but most often she plays comedy. A contradiction? Well, the fact is she excels at high drama and, as Suzie Mackenzie discovers in a rare interview, she…
In this previously unseen footage from the Hicks family archive, filmed at the Laff Stop in Austin in 1991, Bill Hicks explains why children are smarter than adults. Twenty years on from the…
Curve, LeicesterIt's the early 1990s, the Northern ÂIreland peace process is taking its faltering first steps, and INLA man Mad Padraic is hard at work pulling out the toenails of ÂBel…
The standup comic on the things that make him laugh the mostHarry Hill's 2005 tour preview at a 100-seater venue in Windsor. I had no idea what a preview was but loved it. Once I gig with Ha…
As host of the White House correspondents' dinner, comic Michelle Wolf insulted Trump, his inner circle and the press. What happened next?In the past 35 days, Michelle Wolf has hosted the an…
Bush theatre, LondonThree decades since its debut Winsome Pinnock's pioneering portrayal of the lives of black Britons feels shockingly contemporaryIt is more than 30 years since Winsome Pin…
Star Audrey Fleurot and playwright Christopher Hampton talk about his reboot of the hard-hitting moral comedy set in post-Weinstein America"One of the marks of great plays," says Christopher…
Theatres in Scotland played host to the dazzling stagecraft of Robert Lepage, a striking Titus Andronicus and raucous but close-harmonising schoolgirls This summer, I was lucky to get two bi…
Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre MelbournePatricia Cornelius's Australian adaptation of Lorca's classic puts the wounds that men inflict on women centre stage' Sign up to receive the top stories …
Booth Theater, New YorkA starry cast delights in a glossy new version of the 1968 play that balances sharp wit with uncomfortable observationsSticks and stones will break your bones. Words w…
Melody Herzfeld, the one-woman drama department at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, 'overwhelmed' by honorThe special Tony Award that honors educators this year will go to the drama teacher at Marj…
It's hard enough to convince promoters that we're funny. The one-time poster girl for feminism is simply perpetuating the myth"Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for another act. Now, it is a g…
Sadler's Wells, LondonThe influential choreographer's final solo show is a mythic elegy to India's war deadIt is surely key to Akram Khan's magnetism that his first training was in kathak da…
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonThis erratic tragicomedy is played for laughs in a Barrie Rutter production that keeps its cast busy to the lastMichelle Terry's opening season at the Globe contin…
Olivier, LondonBrian Friel's play about the infinite mysteries of language is richly realised in a meticulous Ian Rickson production, with excellent performances from a strong castBrian Frie…
Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester Beckett's tragicomedy is deftly retuned for an age of ecological anxiety and mounting plastic wasteCentre stage, a barren mound of earth. At its edges, a m…