Thursday, March 21, 2019
Triumphant, if crude, West End transfer of a heartfelt account of a Renaissance woman
Emilia Bassano Lanier is not a household name. But maybe she should be. Born in 1569, she was one of the…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:30PMWednesday, March 6, 2019
Adaptation of Harriet Lane's psychological and satirical bestseller never quite takes off
Okay, so this is the play that will be remembered for the character names that have unusual spellin…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:31PMTuesday, March 5, 2019
New show about representations of women's prisons in the media is fun but pointless
Dear Clean Break, Thank you very much for your latest, called Inside Bitch, a show which is billed as "a p…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:00PMThursday, February 28, 2019
The final part of Florian Zeller's domestic trilogy is powerfully melodramatic
Well, you have to give it to French playwright Florian Zeller — he's certainly cracked the problem of coming …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:33AMTuesday, February 26, 2019
★★★★★ THE ANIMALS AND CHILDREN TOOK TO THE STREETS, LYRIC HAMMERSMITH 1927 theatre company returns with its classic hit show
1927 theatre company returns with its classic hit show…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:04AMFriday, February 22, 2019
★★★★ EQUUS, THEATRE ROYAL STRATFORD EAST Thrilling physicality
Brilliant revival of the 1970s classic about pagan worship and repressed sexuality
There is no doubt that Peter Shaffer…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:01AMMonday, February 4, 2019
Bright new monologue about coming of age in the Instagram era really rocksTitles matter: they send out messages. So, in the current #MeToo climate, isn't it a bit provocative that there's a …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:06PMFriday, January 18, 2019
Frantic Assembly's latest is a moving meditation on war and masculinity Nadia Fall is a good thing. Her appointment as the artistic director of this venue, with her first season having …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 04:24AMMonday, January 14, 2019
New play about a cab office fails to find its accelerator pedalWrite what you know, says the adage, and that's exactly what playwright Ishy Din has done with his new play, Approaching Empty,…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:42PMFriday, December 14, 2018
Thrilling revival of Danai Gurira's 2012 play about Chistianity and imperialismWow! First, the Black Panther team took cinema by storm; now, they have conquered theatre as well. Or, at …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:32PMThursday, December 13, 2018
Mark Ravenhill's comeback play is a brilliant account of the abuse of powerPlaywright Mark Ravenhill, who shot to fame in 1996 with his in-yer-face shocker Shopping and Fucking, has bee…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:18PMWednesday, December 5, 2018
Short new play from actor Ellie Kendrick is full of ferocity, but lacks originalityActor Ellie Kendrick is a familiar face on television, but it's only as a writer that she reveals the depth…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:12PMFriday, November 9, 2018
Girls just wanna have fun in the sun - smart, funny but slender debut playBecause of the #MeToo movement, and the revival of feminist protest, the theme of sisterhood now has a much stronger…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:33PMTuesday, November 6, 2018
Imaginative adaptation of Zadie Smith's 2000 classic let down by unnecessary musicYou can see why artistic director Indhu Rubasingham chose to stage this version of Zadie Smith's classi…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:18PMThursday, November 1, 2018
New epic compares the experience of black people in the US and the UKTwo countries; two histories. Being black in the US; being black in the UK. Compare and contrast. Which is exactly what d…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:32PMWednesday, October 24, 2018
Martin McDonagh's latest is poorly written and lacking in imagination It's all in the title, isn't it? Martin McDonagh's surreal new play comes with a warning that not only screams its …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:54PMWednesday, October 17, 2018
Nina Raine's follow-up to her very big hit Consent is often funny but rarely deepIn 2017, playwright Nina Raine's Consent, an excellent National Theatre play about lawyers and rape vict…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:48PMTuesday, October 9, 2018
David Hare’s latest is set in an alternative reality that is more 2008 than 2018Whatever you might think about Brexit, the dreaded B word, the current climate certainly seems to be reinvig…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:18PMSaturday, October 6, 2018
Victorian pugilistic drama: thoroughly heartfelt, highly original and completely timelyThere are not that many plays about sport, but, whether you gamble on results or not, you can bet that …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:04AMTuesday, October 2, 2018
Cold War surveillance drama is interesting, but can't quite conceal its ageWe do love our spy stories, don't we? The idea of betrayal, both political and personal, seems to be a strong …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:04PMTuesday, September 25, 2018
Semi-autobiographical coming of age story jumps to the sounds of grimeThere was once a time when grime music was very angry, and very threatening, but that seems a long time ago now. Today, …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:32PMFriday, September 14, 2018
Deeply felt show about love, marriage and migration doesn’t quite work Director Madani Younis, who since 2011 has transformed the Bush Theatre in West London into one of London's most outs…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 02:18PMWednesday, September 12, 2018
Overwhelmingly powerful new play about motherhood and psychological collapse Blackout. Dark, the colour of childhood fear. Black, the colour of despair. Black. No light visible; no colours t…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:04PMMonday, September 10, 2018
The old Tricycle Theatre is transformed with a name change and a great opening playHoly shit! After being closed for two long years, the old and battered Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn has been…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:04PMThursday, August 9, 2018
Anti-naturalistic revival of Brian Friel's elegiac tribute to the Catholic nobility is oddly unemotionalChekhovian is a rather over-used word when it comes to describing some of the lat…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:04PMTuesday, August 7, 2018
New monologue about drug dealing on the Dark Web is well written if a bit slightThe Dark Web has an intriguing sound about it. Like something out of JRR Tolkein or JK Rowling, it suggests a …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 05:32PMThursday, July 19, 2018
Alan Bennett's black comedy is a howl against the privatization of deathThe NHS is us. For decades our national identity has been bandaged together with the idea, and reality, of a heal…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:04PMFriday, July 13, 2018
Female friendship comedy drama is occasionally bright, but lacks plot and depth Britain is rightly proud of its record on multiculturalism, but whenever cross-cultural couples are shown on f…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:42PMWednesday, July 4, 2018
The RSC’s adaptation of Robert Harris’s Cicero books reaches the West EndHistory repeats itself. This much we know. In the 1980s, under a Tory government obsessed with cuts, the big new …
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 07:48PMThursday, June 28, 2018
Huge new play about the fertility industry is rather crudely conceived We are now pretty familiar with the idea that human reproduction (making babies) has been turned into big business, and…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 06:48PMWednesday, June 27, 2018
Smart and powerful new play about fear, terror and prejudice runs out of steamIt’s the stuff of nightmares. There’s a massive explosion, the sound of smashing glass, falling debris and p…
SOURCE: theartsdesk.com at 08:32PM 
