Still inventive and fun but short on sharp shocks How excited Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton must have been to learn that the venue for their Inside No 9 stage show was haunted, by an …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:18AMAn intimate staging and superb casting make this a superior West End production Into a world of grooming gangs, human trafficking and senior prelates resigning over child abuse cases comes …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:36PMMatthew Bourne's masterly reinvention has become a classic itself How do you refresh a masterpiece? Bringing back his first and still greatest hit, Swan Lake, Matthew Bourne seems to have ch…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 01:48PMLillian Hellman’s family feud set in 1900 Alabama doesn’t survive a confused updating The Young Vic has opened under a new artistic director with a puzzle play. The puzzle is, why stage …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:48PMDirector Patrick Marber does Mel Brooks's 1967 musical proud There is something deliciously perfect about the timing of The Producers’ arrival at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In these twi…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:06AMDan McCabe's play about ageing hiphop stars makes a winning European debut Watching Dan McCabe’s 2019 play, older folk might be reminded of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band’s indelible lyrics,…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:18AMRajiv Joseph’s play pitting beauty against duty gets an impressive staging It’s 1648 in Agra, and an excitable young guardsman has come up with an idea: a giant flying platform that he c…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 11:02AMA magnificent Adrien Brody leads a moving production by Justin Martin There is star casting, and there is casting the right star – not the same thing. The Donmar’s new production, The Fe…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 07:42AMZinnie Harris's modern take robs the play of its tragic potential John Webster’s sour, bloody tale of brotherly greed and vice has been updated by the playwright Zinnie Harris, who also di…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:54AMNathan Englander probes a divide in modern Jewish identity; Patrick Marber directs An incendiary play has opened at the Marylebone, the adventurous venue just off Baker Street. Bigger houses…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:32AMJosh Azouz and Kathryn Hunter concoct an uneasy mix of comedy and tragedy The writer-director Josh Azouz and actor-director Kathryn Hunter have collaborated on a piece exploring the ethics o…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:42AMDaisy Hall's astonishing debut is both darkly funny and deadly serious As hurricanes rip into the American Gulf states with increasing ferocity, eastern Europe disappears underwater and eve…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:36PMChanggeuk Company bring an epic poem quality to the familiar tale What do the cult TV show Squid Game and National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s Lear have in common? Oddly, a K-Pop producer…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:06PMPinero's play emerges fresh-minted in an exquisite production The stock of the late 19th century playwright Arthur Wing Pinero has just received a significant boost, thanks to the brilliant …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:12AMSpirited performances of Elvis Costello’s bland songs can’t save this new musical It’s hard to work out why Kwame-Kwei Armah chose to end his tenure at the Young Vic by directing this …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 12:06PMLyndsey Turner's fast-paced production doesn't let the audience engage with its hero The National’s new production of Coriolanus has to be one of the most handsome to appear on the Olivier…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:18AMTimberlake Wertenbaker's updated version takes particular aim at colonialism The latest Greatest Hit to land at the Lyric is Timberlake Wertenbaker’s 1988 award-winning play about a perfor…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:12AMA wealth of musical talent keeps this gig musical afloat The signs in the Peacock’s foyer warn that this show features "very loud music”. Exactly what Janis Joplin fans want to hear. Thi…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 08:36AMPatrick Barlow’s brand of silly still delivers a sly Hitchcock spoof Before the Plays That Went Wrong and the multi-role six-hander Operation Mincemeat, there was Patrick Barlow’s adapt…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:54AMRoy Williams and Clint Dyer's protagonists rage against the limits of their lives Two boys in east London, one Black, one white, grow up together, play pranks at school, then decades later h…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 09:44AMThe National's finely acted staging of Steinbeck's grim classic is a tough watch It’s a brave company that embarks on a staging of John Steinbeck’s award-winning 1939 novel The Grapes of…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 06:08AMMichael Bennett's 1975 hit has plenty of pizzazz but not enough emotional oomph A Chorus Line reigned supreme on Broadway from 1975 to 1990, a bold, bare-bones piece that for once put musica…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:54AMTimely arrival for Lucas Hnath's play about the cost of winning Before Lucas Hnath wrote Red Speedo, he had heard a 2004 speech at a hearing investigating baseball doping that declared the p…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 05:36AMNassim Soleimanpour's latest 'cold read' work is a unique experience The Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour is many things, some seemingly contradictory: a) a clever, poetic playwright w…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:02PMCardboard Citizens shine an unforgiving light on poverty in the UK A stark end-title at the end of this collection of short films sums up the dire situation the UK is in: one in five people,…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:06AMChristopher Hampton's love of Stefan Zweig's text becomes a drawback Who was Stefan Zweig? It's likely that it's mostly older folk who studied German literature at A-level who have encounter…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:48PMTwo awkward science nerds and a violent alcoholic father are oddly likeable company Sarah Power, the writer of Grud, now in the Hampstead’s smaller space, is a self-confessed geek who e…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:36PMA fine cast spell out the cost of survival in today's ailing industries For a long stretch of its first half, Dominique Morrisseau’s 2016 award-winner, Skeleton Crew, seems a conventional…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:32PMFans of the film will love it, but it's like being in a pink fever dream Nothing anybody over the age of 30 says about the new Mean Girls musical, spawn of Tina Fey’s witty script for the …
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 02:48PMA production with a green message for younger audiences It's a bold move by Regent's Park Open Air Theatre to tackle Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's classic, a story that's been notably…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 03:54AM'Brush Up Your Shakespeare' brings the house down in a strongly cast lineup Lincoln Center’s Bartlett Sher is back in town to direct the Barbican’s latest summer blockbuster, Cole Porter…
SOURCE: The Arts Desk at 04:54AM
