Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Southwark Playhouse, LondonFraming the battle within a 1930s romance and a 2024 walking tour, Adam Lenson’s production has big ballads, hip-hop-ish commentary and high camp
Headline politi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:12AMWednesday, February 14, 2024
Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonEleanor Rhode’s ravishing fusion of flamboyancy, surrealism and raucous fun rouses audiences in a youthful, energetic riot
Directors of Shakes…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:54AMTuesday, December 19, 2023
Ralph Fiennes and David Tennant are among the stars playing Shakespeare’s Thane this year. Might the tragedy’s current popularity have something to do with the Tory government?
After kil…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:12AMMonday, December 4, 2023
Leeds PlayhouseJames Brining’s exemplary staging solves every problem – the antisemitism, the coercive romance – that Oliver Bart’s joyous, beloved but difficult musical presents
Wit…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:36AMSunday, October 29, 2023
Minerva theatre, ChichesterDespite fine acting, Harry Davies’ political thriller about a contaminated water scandal fails to plumb the depths of its characters
In two senses, this debut pl…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:07PMWednesday, October 25, 2023
The Everton FC chairman and hands-on producer of dozens of stage hits, who has died aged 78, ceaselessly radiated the bonhomie of the actor he originally was
While he was primarily a theatri…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:25AMTuesday, October 10, 2023
Jonathan Lynn’s new play finds the political double act in their 80s, in a suitable final chapter to a magnificent comic project
For Britons interested in politics, 25 February 1980 was a …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:04AMThursday, September 21, 2023
Marylebone theatre, LondonSet in a Polish ghetto, Dmitry Glukhovsky’s superb play explores the terrible choices made by people under occupation
Only the hardest heart would not feel advanc…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:25PMTuesday, September 19, 2023
Hampstead theatre, LondonLauren Gunderson’s smart play finds a software engineer creating a digital version of a sister who has disappeared
While screenwriters strike, partly over the thr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:49AMFriday, September 15, 2023
It’s a dream team: the creator of the 1982 BBC series and the writer of Sherwood. The pair meet in Liverpool to discuss putting Yosser and the lads on stage in a new era of economic desper…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:33AMThursday, August 31, 2023
RSC, Stratford-upon-AvonBenefitting from a Scottish cast and a rewritten Porter’s speech by Lee, Wils Wilson’s production gets at the demonic drive of people desperate for power but hope…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:33AMThursday, August 24, 2023
Almeida, LondonSam Holcroft’s drama delights in the theatrical trickery of dual identities and false realities to throw a final surprise punch
Extending the long tail of works influenced b…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:13PMThursday, August 3, 2023
Shakespeare’s Globe, LondonGender swapped roles shed new light on dark days in a production – complete with gruesome bodybags and references to fake news – that feels aptly aligned to …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:19AMWednesday, August 2, 2023
Watermill theatre, BerkshireA formidable cast journey through folk via Bollywood to pop – not to mention mountain treks and orc attacks – in a compressed revival of the 2007 musical
As d…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:04AMThursday, July 20, 2023
Dorfman theatre, LondonPiling up devastating detail, this play with a remarkable cast shockingly lays bare the abject failures behind this disaster
During dramas about a national catastrophe…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:19PMWednesday, May 10, 2023
Watermill theatre, NewburyKate Summerscale’s Victorian potboiler is deftly condensed in a production that brings out the misogyny and class snobbery of the era
The risk of a successful cr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:18AMThursday, May 4, 2023
Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonDeparting artistic director Greg Doran reinvigorates this tale of a royal family in crisis with clarity and intelligence
The president of the Ro…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:54AMThursday, April 6, 2023
Watermill theatre, NewburyBarney Norris’s revival radiates the pain of older parents trapped on deteriorating paths, while their son and end-of-life au pair struggle to find their own
Youn…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:24AMWednesday, March 29, 2023
Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonAtri Banerjee’s RSC production stresses the remarkable universality of the play’s examination of leaders and the led
Early in the Trump admi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:42AMThursday, February 23, 2023
Partially based on verbatim texts from Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, a new play which lists no dramatist veers from Ted talk to pantomime
At this play about Dominic Cummings, the n…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:07AMFriday, February 3, 2023
Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonClimate catastrophe and power struggles dominate Elizabeth Freestone’s RSC interpretation of Shakespeare’s play
If there were prizes for inv…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:52AMFriday, November 25, 2022
Orange Tree theatre, LondonThis 1894 farce set during the Serbo-Bulgarian war is impeccably played in a production showing the playwright’s radical vision still resonates
When Channel 4 be…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:24AMWednesday, November 9, 2022
Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonDavid Edgar’s sharp script feels close to home in this exuberant, illusion-filled version of Dickens’ seasonal but socially conscious story
…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:03AMSunday, September 18, 2022
Original Theatre OnlineShomit Dutta’s play imagines the two cricket-obsessed Nobel prize winners as waiting batsmen in an enjoyable spin on Waiting for Godot and The Dumb Waiter
Samuel Bec…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:43AMThursday, September 15, 2022
Nottingham PlayhouseAdrian Scarborough stars in his own adaptation of Bennett’s story, featuring convincing new dialogue and staged with visual panache
Between the stage and TV plays and j…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:07AMFriday, September 2, 2022
Minerva, ChichesterA spin doctor’s life spirals into chaos after he’s hired by an ambitious senator in Christopher Shinn’s grimly comic drama
After working on Hillary Clinton’s faile…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:55AMFriday, August 12, 2022
Finborough theatre, LondonA ghostly tale and a potent monologue form a double bill that uses the 2014 conflict to remark movingly on current events
Because theatres schedule so far ahead, th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:54AMSunday, July 3, 2022
The esteemed British director inspired each new generation of theatre creatives to be more daring and experimental
Peter Brook, influential theatre visionary, dies aged 97
The two key Britis…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:48AMSunday, June 19, 2022
Shakespeare’s Globe, LondonBack in the role she first played in 1997, Hunter uses her extraordinary transformative powers to show us the king as a geriatric child at the head of a disinteg…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:18AMSunday, May 22, 2022
Chichester Festival theatreHenry Goodman gives us every inch of Hercule Poirot’s dandiness and comedy in this exemplary adaptation of Christie’s ingenious murder mystery, but also gets e…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:37PMWednesday, May 4, 2022
Sondheim theatre/Prince Edward theatre, LondonJudi Dench, Rob Brydon, Imelda Staunton and Bernadette Peters joined the cast for this superb tribute to a genius
Stephen Sondheim was so vast a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:12PM 
