Monday, June 8, 2020
We are living, I have frequently been told, through weird times. Maybe. But do weird times necessarily require weird art? Do bad times provoke bad art?
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 07:00AMSunday, June 7, 2020
In his wide-ranging, and widely read, survey of postwar British theatre, called State of the Nation, the Guardian critic Michael Billington sets out his stall: in the introduction to the …
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 01:08AMWednesday, June 3, 2020
This revival of a 2011 HighTide hit, reconceived for streaming, stars Diana Quick and is intimate and quietly moving.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:00AMFriday, May 29, 2020
During the lockdown, the best online theatre, more or less, are shows that are specially created for this digital format. Much better than dull records of dramas that might have worked well …
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 02:49AMWednesday, May 27, 2020
World on fire: The NT Live recording of this classic Young Vic production stars Gillian Anderson and is genuinely unmissable.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:00AMSunday, May 24, 2020
Over the past couple of months, theatre reviewing has become film reviewing, and venues all over the country have struggled to make material available for watching online. The biggest instit…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 04:14AMThursday, May 21, 2020
So far, it could be said that the National Theatre is having a good lockdown. Every week, this flagship streams one of its stock of NT Live films, which are always a welcome reminder of the …
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 01:21PMLockdown occasionally spawns some real delights. Like the surprise appearance of a strange creature from the profoundest depths. One of these must be Andrew Scott’s superb performance in S…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:00AMWednesday, May 6, 2020
Howard Brenton's docu-drama about the harassment of the Chinese artist is imbued with fresh urgency and relevance.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 11:00AMMonday, May 4, 2020
The megahit NT Live version of this iconic tale of creative hubris features a dynamic acting duo, but it is not perfect.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 09:00AMSunday, May 3, 2020
She’s an ordinary young woman, and she really doesn’t know what to think. After all, things are way out of control. Out of order. She knows that the natural world is pretty fucked and th…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 03:30AMFriday, May 1, 2020
Reviewing theatre now means reviewing the film. Knowing that Emma Rice’s Old Vic 2018 production of Wise Children, her typically rambunctious version of Angela Carter’s last novel, publi…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 01:54AMThursday, April 23, 2020
Virginia Woolf’s reputation has closely followed British cultural trends: in the interwar years she was a beacon of modernism, austere and difficult; by the 1970s a feminist icon; in the 1…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 09:39AMTuesday, April 21, 2020
Emma Rice's version of Angela Carter's last novel is a beautifully bizarre celebration of alternative families.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 09:00AMWednesday, April 15, 2020
The BBC film version of a Renaissance rape trial is powerfully resonant, relevant and a riveting watch.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 09:00AMMonday, April 13, 2020
Armchair theatre-lovers rejoice. During the lockdown, the National Theatre is streaming a selection of its past hits for free for one week at a time. These shows, originally filmed as part o…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 08:39PMSunday, April 12, 2020
Gloriously surreal monologue about everyday anxieties in extraordinary circumstances: welcome back the glittering dark!
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 07:00AMSaturday, April 11, 2020
It’s only been a week since London’s West End went dark and theatres closed all over the UK, but it feels like months. Really. Like many others, I’m in self-isolation, stressed by work…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 12:02AMFriday, April 10, 2020
With everyone in lockdown, observing physical if not social distancing, a story about isolation can have a particular resonance. And there are few places in the UK that are as isolated as so…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 02:03AMMonday, April 6, 2020
These shows, originally filmed as part of the flagship’s NT Live project, are now available on its YouTube channel. The first is Richard Bean’s gloriously silly farce, One Man, Two, Guvn…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:00PMSunday, April 5, 2020
This touring theatre's new tartan gothic thriller is complex, but also a bit overwrought and conventional.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:00AMFriday, April 3, 2020
Your story. Our story. Their story. Just imagine: you’re a political refugee, and, having experienced horrible things that happened to your family, you finally, after a lot of trouble, arr…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 11:44PMSaturday, March 28, 2020
Theatre Uncut’s Bubble, a streamed film about social media and the woke generation is educational, but unexceptional.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 10:00AMFriday, March 27, 2020
Once-radical theatre companies are increasingly celebrating anniversaries, as if to say, hey, look, we’re still here. Now it’s the turn of Frantic Assembly to mark its 25th anniversary w…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 12:47AMWednesday, March 18, 2020
Since 2000, Esther Baker’s Synergy Theatre Project has worked with prisoners, ex-offenders and young people at risk of offending to produce powerful dramas about some of the most fraught s…
SOURCE: thetheatretimes.com at 09:03PMMonday, March 16, 2020
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 12:00PMSunday, March 15, 2020
Shoe Lady at the Royal Court is not the most involving play in the world, but it does have an evocative resonance.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 08:00AMFriday, March 13, 2020
Gerald Moon’s 1983 comedy-thriller, Corpse!, is a typical example of a style of writing about murder that is entertaining in its plotting, but offers little else of dramatic pleasure.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:00AMThursday, March 12, 2020
A verbatim piece about the subject of transatlantic deportation, The Special Relationship is a well researched, strongly contemporary piece.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 12:00PMWednesday, March 11, 2020
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 12:00PMTuesday, March 10, 2020
Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 02:00PM 
