3,497 stories from The Arts Desk
Andrew Scott, predictably unpredictable, is subject to Robert Icke's slow-burn clarityHow often do you leave a production of Shakespeare's most layered drama in tears, thinking "what an…
Tony winner's first play couples awkwardness and charm There's something to be said for encountering a playwright fresh out of the starting gate. Since his debut play Speech & Debat…
Shakespeare's comedy gets bogged down in this messy production"The nine men's morris is filled up with mud, and the quaint mazes in the wanton green for lack of tread are undistinguisha…
Tamsin Greig leads an superb cast in this giddy take on Shakespeare's classic comedyEverybody's a little bit gay in in Simon Godwin's giddy new Twelfth Night at the National Theatre. Fr…
The, ahem, ladies do what they can with a show at once overfamiliar and overlong Why? That's the abiding question that hangs over The Girls, the sluggish and entirely pro forma Tim Firth-Gar…
Debut play makes strong and worthwhile points but lacks depth Hot on the heels of Katherine Soper's award-winning Wish List, about the UK benefits system in crisis, and John Godber's This Mi…
Neat revival of 1980s feminist comedy is more curiosity than classicThe 1980s were a great decade for British women playwrights. During those Thatcher-dominated years, Caryl Churchill produc…
THE WILD PARTY, THE OTHER PALACE Gin, skin and sin in a scorching production of a slight musicalGin, skin and sin in a scorching production of a slight musicalThe Other Palace's housewarming…
Real sex workers take the stage for a brilliantly devised showSex workers come in all shapes and sizes. Everyone knows that. But why do they do it? Why does anyone take the risk of being int…
More or less a one-man show, but the denouement justifies everythingHated the Schaubühne Hamlet (same lead actor, same director as this latest Shakespeare auf Deutsch); loved Ivo van Hove's…
A wonder-filled, child's-eye view of Shakespeare from director Max WebsterIn the end, it's all about Mamillius. It's he " young son of Leontes of Sicily " who launches director Max Webs…
Stage version of dystopian classic returns " lively but cartoonishThere are few modern literary fables that really resonate in the wider culture. And most that do are dystopias. Think of Geo…
Adjust your brain, and give in to Tom Stoppard's howlingly funny playTom Stoppard's humungously funny play Travesties was born out of a piece of James Joyce doggerel about how a British…
He's George to Imelda's Martha, Varys in 'Game of Thrones', and an acting genius Some know him only as Lord Varys the scheming eunuch, spymaster to the king of the Seven …
Zweig's tale of moral equivocation becomes a tense radio-play with optional visual extrasProlific, fitfully great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig's two biggest popular biographies, Marie A…
His great novel 'Beware of Pity' is being staged at the Barbican. Who was Zweig, and the woman with whom he committed suicide?On 23 February 1942 at half past four in the afternoon…
Cumberbatch's queen, Mark Strong's guilty secret, now she's pocket Olivia to Tamsin Greig's MalvoliaIn London and New York, Phoebe Fox (b. 1987) is known to theatregoers …
Jamie Lloyd tackles Philip Ridley's modern classic " with terrific resultsPlaywright Philip Ridley has one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary theatre. His imagination is laced wi…
Tennessee Williams' first masterpiece gets the John Tiffany touchThe writing of Tennessee Williams, said his contemporary Arthur Miller, planted "the flag of beauty on the shores of com…
New drama about literary ambition is neat, but not nearly disturbing enoughOdd bedfellows are an ideal subject for comedy, and for passion " because opposites attract, right? Well this is ce…
This pitch black production of Webster's revenge tragedy is pitch perfectIt was no accident that when the Globe's Sam Wanamaker Playhouse opened in 2014 it was with The Duchess of Malfi…
Hit rom-com show is LOL funny, but also a bit thinAs the only inhabitant of Planet Earth who wasn't completely knocked senseless by La-La Land, it does occur to me that I might not be the mo…
The Grim Reaper seeks the meaning of life in this lush but ludicrous musical"I'm Death." "And you're on holiday?" Well, there's really no way to disguise the preposterousness of this show's …
Startling hour-long play mixes the poignant and the playful Unimaginable tragedy is given poignant, piquant form in Us/Them, the hour-long performance piece from Belgian theatre company BRON…
America's new president gives rise to galvanic, sometimes scary theatreThere's an irony to be found in the fact that America's 45th president is already abolishing any and all things to…
