3,495 stories from The Arts Desk
Actors battle with accents and a wooden script in 1960s drama set in a New York Italian immigrant neighbourhood
According to their mother, Luda (played by Madeleine Worrall, pictured below),…
Recalling a two-day audience at the home of the great maestro, who has died aged 96
"I am amazed to be still alive. Two hours of medieval torment." Franco Zeffirelli - who has died at the ag…
The indelible power of Lynn Nottage's new play confirmed in Donmar transfer
There's a joke early on in Sweat, Lynn Nottage's superlative drama about American working lives, in which a lively…
Slice of Rattigan esoterica is useful to see even as it shows its age
Terence Rattigan completists, and count myself among them, will leap at the chance to see a rare production courtesy th…
Nicholas Hytner's vivacious 21st-century take shines like a disco glitterball
Nicholas Hytner's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Bridge Theatre is a feat of exuberant brilliance, a gender-ju…
The Olivier Award-winning alumnus of 'Kinky Boots' shifts gears to tell a vibrant story of 1960s America
When I first read One Night in Miami, I instantly felt a strong connection t…
Okwui Okpokwasili's solo performance piece is an astounding piece of theatre
It's hard, and finally fruitless to attempt to describe Okwui Okpokwasili's Bronx Gothic in conventional terms of…
Declan Donnellan riffs on Beaumont's meta-comedy in flavoursome Russian
Declan Donnellan has a rich record of working with Russian actors: his previous walk on the Slavic side, the darkly po…
The future of education seen from 1997 and 2019
It's the 2nd May 1997, the morning after the night that swept New Labour into power. We're in the staffroom of a school somewhere in Britain a…
Decade-hopping story about sexual identity also celebrates the art of theatre
In one lifetime, the many loves that once dare not speak their names have become part of everyday chatter. But i…
Lenny Henry leads a strong cast in August Wilson's 1999 play of African American identity
The huge achievement of the last two decades or so of August Wilson's life, right up to his death in…
Kenneth Lonergan's Off Broadway play trades heavily on deadpan as it crosses the pond
A small-scale Off Broadway venture late in 2009, The Starry Messenger has arrived in London to mark the…
1930s setting for Falstaff's escapades wins out only in song and dance
Need Shakespeare's Falstaff charm to be funny? Those warm, indulgent feelings won by Mrisho Mpoto in the amazing Glo…
Revival of Githa Sowerby's 1912 classic of industrial patriarchy is worthy but inaccessible
Githa Sowerby is the go-to playwright if you want a feminist slant on patriarchy in the industrial…
Dante or Die's latest is mirthful and mournful in turn
Who is that slithering on the floor by your foot, or coming to rest by or upon your knee? Audiences lucky enough to find themselves at…
Superbly conceived and crafted multimedia theatre piece about art forgery
This brilliantly conceived and executed show is about provenance in art. It's also about our perceptions of the trut…
A moving antidote to fast-paced narratives and rampant individualism
Our Town was written shortly before World War Two about a small town in America in the years leading up to World War One,…
A simultaneously sweeping and intimately human production
Mammon and Yahweh are the presiding deities over an epic enterprise that tells the story not just of three brothers who founded a ba…
Nicôle Lecky's raw, persuasive play about sex work, social media and female empowerment
Tonight comes with a caveat, delivered before proceedings begin by the one-woman show's writer and …
Intriguing Cold War thriller is thoroughly immersive, but lacks a convincing sense of history
Stasiland is a fascinating mental space. As a historical location, the former East Germany, or G…
The director explains what drew her to the season-opener this summer at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park
I've wanted to direct Thornton Wilder's Our Town for a long time.
The play is…
Australian troupe dazzle with balletic acrobatics, stunning precision and teamwork
Shows by Gravity & Other Myths fall into the realm of "contemporary circus". It's an off-putting monike…
One woman's journey to explore the slave trade is both personal and provocative
Most of the facts about the Atlantic slave trade are well known; what is less easily understood is how history…
New satire about the cosmetics industry and race is only mildly funny
Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone's commitment to staging a diversity of new voices is very laudable, and with White …
Doubling, humour and an outstanding female Henry V
Henry IV Part One (***)
