As the furore around Ray Badran's performance at the Melbourne comedy festival continues, Adrienne Truscott asks who should get to make rape jokesIf a tree falls in a forest and no one is ar…
Gilded Balloon, EdinburghTruscott has some funny, transgressive material but technical glitches and a lack of polish disrupt the flow of this setNot many acts enter fringe legend with their …
The comedian talks about her show Asking For It, comics' lazy use of sexual assault for laughs and how, post-Trump, rape culture is 'at the executive level'Is it ever OK to joke about rape? …
Northern Stage, Newcastle Mark Calvert's charming revival robs Roald Dahl's story of its dramatic climax but makes up for it with a swinging score and plenty of New York sass If you had to p…
Orange Tree, Richmond Maugham's 1933 play " about a man whose charitable giving horrifies his family " beautifully skewers the self-interestedness of society then and nowSomerset Maugham is …
Our friend Rona Hart, who has died aged 88, was a celebrated dancer and teacher who in 1946 founded the Rona Hart School of Dance, in Hampstead, north London. She taught there until her reti…
The apprentice witch " created by Eiko Kadono and featured in Hayao Miyazaki's movie " is coming to Southwark Playhouse in a new stage adaptation. But first they need to work out how to make…
When the Coronation Street star Jean Alexander accompanied a member of the Friends of York Opera, Helen Wilkinson, to an aftershow party in the early 1990s, I found her in the kitchen, up to…
Recruitment hailed as significant milestone in development of £19m playhouse and education hub in MerseysidePlans for a £19m theatre in Merseyside are one step closer to realisation, w…
Many of those flocking to a theatre's annual festive show intuit that the rest of the year's programme isn't for them. It's about time panto had serious artistic statusOver the next few week…
Sadler's Wells, LondonMichael Keegan-Dolan's version of the classic ballet, told with Irish-Nordic folk music, builds to an unexpected moment of raptureMichael Keegan-Dolan has deep choreogr…
When the Essex-born comic first came across the firebrand US standup as a teen, he saw a way to articulate his own frustrations. Now fronting a new documentary series on racial hatred, he sa…
Finborough, London Oscar Toeman directs Rodney Ackland's most autobiographical work, which painfully records the reckless optimism that accompanies any theatrical ventureTime has lent a pati…
The Daily Show's Trevor Noah discusses his new book, Born a Crime, with an audience of Guardian Members and tells anecdotes of his childhood growing up 'coloured' in South Africa. Noah recal…
Leeds goes Strictly Ballroom, Sweet Charity is revived in Manchester and the Donmar's astonishing Shakespeare Trilogy continuesWhat do we value and have we got our priorities right? Those ar…
In 1995, Mark Lockyer was appearing in Romeo and Juliet when he was overcome with anxiety, fear and paranoia, beginning a bipolar rollercoaster. Now he's turned those dark days into a solo s…
Roslyn Packer theatre, SydneyThe mix of nostalgia, regret and soul-searching that is the price of growing old is captured in Andrew Upton's masterful adaptation of Chekov's novice playSo thi…
Neil Simon Theater, New York The girls are now above the age of consent, but there's still not much else to thank heaven for in this awkward stage version of the 50s filmIn a celebrated nove…
Versatile British actor known for his stage roles in Shakespeare and the RSC's Nicholas Nickleby who found fame on US TV in Cheers and The West WingRoger Rees, who has died aged 71 after suf…
Macrobert Arts Centre, StirlingHigh-density gags featuring a host of fairytale favourites cover up the narrative cracks in Johnny McKnight's subversive panto"Weans in the Wood is about some …
Roundhouse, LondonThe performance artist Scottee uses real-life interviews with LGBT people to ask just how tolerant Brexit-era Britain really isThere is a remarkable moment " one of several…
Lilian Baylis Studio, Sadler's Wells, LondonHetain Patel swaggers, sashays and speaks out in his deeply unsettling satire on misogynyHetain Patel is a performance artist from Bolton whose ne…
Donmar at King's Cross, LondonHarriet Walter is the linchpin in the Donmar's momentous, all-female staging of Julius Caesar, Henry IV and The TempestThe use of new skills or the unearthing o…
Character actor with a distinguished stage, TV and film career that included a Harry Potter cameoDavid Ryall, who has died aged 79, was one of the most distinguished character actors at the …
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