All stories by David Nice on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Ghosts, Abbey Theatre, Dublin review - creating tension from desolation by David Nice

Cathy Belton’s devastating economy steers Mark O’Rowe’s quietly stunning Ibsen Church and law are enemies of promise in Ibsen’s tragedy-without-catharis. You can see why this devasta…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:06AM
Saturday, April 15, 2023

Life is a Dream, Cheek by Jowl, Barbican Theatre review - savouring the Spanish of a singular masterpiece by David Nice

A suitably phantasmagoical vision in strong teamwork by Calderón's compatriots Dream versus reality, fate and free will, love and death, nature versus nurture: they’re all here in Calder�…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:12AM
Monday, March 20, 2023

Dance of Death, National Theatre of Norway, Coronet Theatre - straight for the jugular by David Nice

White-heat Strindberg from Norwegian actors undeterred by technical hitches You don’t have to be Scandinavian to act out Strindberg’s fantastical extremes at the highest level, but I’v…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:01AM
Thursday, March 9, 2023

The New Electric Ballroom, Gate Theatre, Dublin review - fantasy and memory hauntingly interwoven by David Nice

Enda Walsh's second drama on now about ritualised isolation is mesmerising Commuting between London and Dublin has its fascinations.10 days ago, I saw for the first time at the Southwark Pla…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:40AM
Monday, February 27, 2023

The Walworth Farce, Southwark Playhouse Elephant review - dysfunctional Irish myth-making by David Nice

Four spot-on performances confirm that Enda Walsh's queasy thriller is here to stay The farce in question is fast and furious, but not often hilariously funny; that’s because it’s the in…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 03:44AM
Tuesday, October 4, 2022

Only an Octave Apart, Wilton's Music Hall review - instant charm, infinite variety by David Nice

Justin Vivian Bond and Anthony Roth Costanzo in an absolutely fabulous double act You know you’re in good company the minute these two appear on stage: they are so splendidly what they are…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:55AM
Thursday, August 18, 2022

theartsdesk at the Kilkenny Arts Festival 2022 - a safe space to reflect on horrors by David Nice

Masha Gessen, Shostakovich and Shakespeare’s Prospero wrestle order from chaos Essay-writing can be a great art, at least when executed by Hubert Butler of Kilkenny, on a par - whether you…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:25AM
Wednesday, July 13, 2022

theartsdesk at the Ravenna Festival 2022 - body and soul in perfect balance by David Nice

Completion of the city’s big Dante project with 'Paradiso' is only one of three wonders For once, a festival theme has meaning. “Tra la carne e il cielo”, “Between flesh and heaven�…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:54AM
Friday, June 17, 2022

Ulysses, Abbey Theatre / The Tin Soldier, Gate Theatre, Dublin review - peerless Joyce marathon, Andersen squashed by David Nice

Barry McGovern is odyssey master, while fine performers sag under awful script A pot plant on a stand, two tables with glasses of water, two chairs – one plush, one high – are all the pr…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:24AM
Monday, May 9, 2022

Age of Rage, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Barbican review - shattering assault on all the senses by David Nice

Happiest in home-territory epics, Ivo van Hove pulls off a Greek-tragedy stunner Hunger for the gruesome horrors and euphoric highs of Greek tragedy seems to be stronger than ever. Yet when …

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:42AM
Saturday, March 5, 2022

Henry V, Donmar Warehouse review - playing at war by David Nice

Good in parts, but Kit Harington’s king isn’t the best thing about this hard-working show Sharp suits swapped for combat fatigues, a people’s commander: you’d think that Max Webster�…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 12:18PM
Wednesday, March 2, 2022

When We Dead Awaken, The Norwegian Ibsen Company, Coronet Theatre review - living death, dying life by David Nice

Ibsen anticipates Beckett in his strange final play, austerely staged with dashes of wit In Ibsen's last and shortest play, further cut here, four people nominally climb a mountain, but actu…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:33AM
Tuesday, January 11, 2022

Force Majeure, Donmar Warehouse review - fissures in a marriage by David Nice

Skiing-resort trauma is played too much for easy laughs It sounds like the title of a play by Rattigan. No such luck: “Force Majeure” – a legal term with which all too few will be fami…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:24AM
Sunday, December 12, 2021

Cabaret, The Kit Kat Club at the Playhouse Theatre review – polymorphous, prodigious by David Nice

Jessie Buckley and Eddie Redmayne constantly surprise in multilayered production Turning a theatre into the Kit Kat Club, Berlin, early 1930s, is nothing new: the Edinburgh University Theatr…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 10:54PM
Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Royal Opera House lullabies for Little Amal by David Nice

Near the end of her long journey, our refugee gets a welcome her real-life kin are denied “I want to tell her that people will be good,” Tewodros Aregawe of Phosphoros Theatre confided t…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:03AM
Monday, July 5, 2021

Wonderful Town, Quick Fantastic, Opera Holland Park - everybody's swinging it by David Nice

Band and singers energise the brilliant entertainment of Bernstein, Comden and Green It’s a wonderful thing to hear a nine-piece Broadway-style band at full pelt, and to see real show danc…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:32AM
Friday, June 18, 2021

Happy Days, Riverside Studios review – memory, madness and melancholy by David Nice

Lisa Dwan’s infinite variety guides us through Beckett’s timeless masterpiece Just when you thought you couldn’t take any more one- or two-handers, online or in the theatre, along come…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:54AM
Saturday, September 12, 2020

The Shrine & Bed Among the Lentils, Bridge Theatre review - loneliness shared, with wit and melancholy by David Nice

Monica Dolan and Lesley Manville are peerless in this Alan Bennett double bill Monologues and duets rule the stage right now. We can only dream of the day when theatre steps up to the classi…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:18AM
Monday, May 4, 2020

Re:Creating Europe, MIF Rewind review - last year's burning issue semi-dramatized by David Nice

Ivo van Hove engages British and Dutch actors to debate the urgent question of 2019 Are we really past all this? From Ivo van Hove's 2019 polyphony of opinions and reflections down the centu…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:54AM
Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration, Broadway.com/YouTube review - slick, often sombre, but when funny, hilarious by David Nice

A host of Broadway stars varies the strain in classily done from-home gala Maybe you can't compare incomparables, but it was instructive to watch this Broadway lockdown gala feting nonagenar…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:42AM
Monday, March 23, 2020

Sondheim at 90 Songs: 2 - 'Epiphany'/'A Little Priest' by David Nice

Is there a better climax to a musical first act than the terror-plus-wit in 'Sweeney Todd'? Two numbers, one hair-raising slice of music-theatre. When Sondheim's paying homage to the older, …

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 09:54PM
Thursday, March 5, 2020

The Revenger's Tragedy, Piccolo Teatro di Milano/Cheek by Jowl, Barbican review - fun, but not enough by David Nice

Middleton's decimation of an Italian court needs more satirical thrust Vendetta, morte: what a lark to find those tools of 19th century Italian opera taken back to their mother tongue in a M…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:54AM
Thursday, February 20, 2020

La Cage aux Folles [The Play], Park Theatre review - half-cock farce by David Nice

Embarrassing period piece needs a lift from better comic timing than this Not the musical then, worst luck. How timely it would have been to mark Jerry Herman's passing with a celebration of…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:42AM
Friday, January 31, 2020

Persona, Riverside Studios review - Bergman masterpiece transformed into 'The Mumbling' by David Nice

One woman barely speaks, the other can't be heard and two men interfere A work of genius isn't sacred, copyrighted territory. A great film may become a play, a novel a film; the adaptation s…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:24AM
Friday, January 3, 2020

Celebrating the musicals of Jerry Herman (1931-2019) by David Nice

An immortal lyricist and composer leaves us plenty to be joyful about How is it that, in the nearly 900 pages of Sondheim's collected lyrics with extensive comments Finishing the Hat and Loo…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:54AM
Wednesday, November 27, 2019

My Brilliant Friend, National Theatre review - sleek spectacle almost eats its characters by David Nice

Four complex novels squeezed into a big, bold show with strong performances It took no time for Elena Ferrante's two Neapolitan friends to join the ranks of great literary creations: Lenù a…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:03AM
Friday, November 22, 2019

Henry VI, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - a lively vortex by David Nice

Close-knit company keeps the York and Lancaster clashes as clear and lively as it can No Joan of Arc means no Henry VI Part One. France, where we left the victorious Henry V - the superb Sar…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:06AM
Thursday, November 7, 2019

Shadows, Coronet Theatre review - talking heads in the void by David Nice

Multimedia haunting from Norwegian company De Utvalgte in Jon Fosse's theatre-poem In a flowering branch of London theatre, Norway comes to Notting Hill with what's becoming revelatory regul…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:06AM
Saturday, November 2, 2019

A Prayer for Wings, King's Head Theatre review - claustrophobic mother-daughter drama soars by David Nice

A young carer and her mother movingly portrayed in Sean Mathias's 1985 drama When Sean Mathias wrote A Prayer for Wings 35 years ago, the subject of young carers devoting their lives to pare…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 11:42AM
Friday, July 12, 2019

theartsdesk at the Ravenna Festival 2019 - in heaven with Dante's Purgatorio and Estonian rites by David Nice

A dramatic tour from the tomb of Italy's greatest poet and music among the mosaics Two years ago Ermanno Montanari and Marco Martinelli, the visionary partners who have powered Ravenna's rev…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:24AM
Thursday, July 11, 2019

Peter Gynt, National Theatre review - towering protagonist, middle-way production by David Nice

James McArdle's lead, strong ensemble and David Hare's Ibsen adaptation compel Like Hamlet and both parts of Goethe's Faust, with which it shares the highest peak of poetic drama, Ibsen's Pe…

SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:42AM

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