Young Vic, LondonThe Atonement director presents the story of the astronomer with a kaleidoscopic theatricality that increasingly detracts from Brecht’s textIt is a sign of Bertolt Brecht�…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:18AMSwan, Stratford-on-AvonA reactionary pope dies, only to be succeeded by a seeming liberal who soon reverts to institutional conservatism. You could hardly have a more topical play than this.…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:06AMOctagon, Bolton Cathy Tyson stars in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ambitious play which debates the choices politicised women face, from ancient Athens to modern BritainTimberlake Wertenbaker�…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42AMArcola theatre, LondonHicks has the power to give individual words a wealth of meaning in his portrayal of a villain driven by infantile dreams and private demonsHot on the heels of an accla…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:48PMMinerva, ChichesterA Jewish boy and his family’s black maid are at the heart of this witty, pulsing musical that takes in everything from klezmer to Tamla MotownSince this musical has book…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:06AMApollo, LondonFriends of Dorothy may be diverted by this musical prequel to The Wizard of Oz. But, although it has been a hit in New York, it seems all too typical of the modern Broadway mus…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:33AMTheatre Royal Stratford East, London A moving adaptation of the award-winning novel, with added songs, explores the mental toll on an abducted woman and her childMy queasiness about the subj…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:24AMWyndham’s, LondonTim Pigott-Smith gives the performance of his career in Mike Bartlett’s intelligent meditation on the pressures and purpose of monarchy today• King Charles III: a West…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:54PMOlivier, LondonThe celebrated writer-director’s attempt to radically update and reclaim the story is hamstrung by a terrible text and an over-complex stagingIt’s not been a great month f…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:05AMHampstead Theatre, LondonMore symbolist poem than play, Oscar Wilde's once-banned Salome invites a strong directorial concept. But where Steven Berkoff memorably gave us a stylised, slow-mot…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:36AMHampstead theatre, LondonThis adaptation shows the nightmarish conflicts faced by Stewart as a provincial governor in Iraq but fails to connect with the bigger political pictureThere have be…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:06AMJermyn Street theatre, LondonIn his debut as a playwright, Stephen Unwin explores the fate of disabled youths in Nazi Germany and creates an engrossing moral debateThere is an obvious diffic…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:02AMJoan Littlewood's pioneering 1963 musical about the first world war not only changed attitudes towards the conflict, it remade British theatre. As the show gets a loving revival, Michael Bil…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:48PMNational, LondonGalileo is a restless, endlessly evolving masterpiece. Brecht himself wrote three versions between 1937 and his death. David Hare has now amplified his 1994 adaptation for th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:06AMBarbican, LondonHow do you recapture the shock impact of Alfred Jarry's 1896 play, with its savage portrait of a grotesque monster? Given that Jarry's play started as a schoolboy prank aimed…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:24PMLyttleton, LondonTwenty five years after its first production, this eight-hour fantasia is revealed as both a document of the Aids crisis and an amply justified vision of US politicsTwo big …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12PMRoyal Court, London Paddy Considine stars as a reformed IRA activist in the Jerusalem playwright’s deeply involving and abundant new workThe combination of Jez Butterworth as writer and Sa…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42PMMinerva, ChichesterDespite stumbling over a line, Henry ended the evening looking totally assured in a Willy Russell revival that proves Lashana Lynch’s star potentialThis was one of the s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:42PMDonmar Warehouse, London Henry exudes authority as a deadly racketeer but Bruce Norris’s version of Brecht’s 1941 drama tries too hard to draw parallels with the new US presidentIt is al…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:24PMFinborough, LondonTwo sisters confront each other and the irrationality of hatred in David Ireland’s blackly comic political dramaDavid Ireland is our theatre’s expert at exploring the p…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:48AMSouthwark Playhouse, London A defiant duchess takes on a corrupt clergyman in this vigorous revival of James Shirley’s cracking 17th-century playJames Shirley (1596-1666) is one of British…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:48AMAlmeida, London Lyndsey Turner’s immaculate, neon-lit revival of Crimp’s 1993 play lays bare the ways reality is exploited and distorted by the mediaThere’s a rich ambiguity to the tit…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:18AMShakespeare’s Globe, LondonThis risible production butchers the language, turns Juliet into a squawking, pampered princess and makes everyone dance to the Village PeopleDaniel Kramer, dire…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:02AMChichester Festival theatreDaniel Evans directs a patchy and slightly chaotic revival of Alan Bennett’s comedy about a Britain torn between tradition and progressDaniel Evans made such a s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:12AMBarbican, LondonJude Law stars in Ivo van Hove’s classy stage adaptation of Luchino Visconti’s 1942 film that just falls short of original’s atmospheric detailJude Law is the big draw …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:42PMVaudeville, LondonPhil Davis and Sinéad Cusack star in Nicolas Kent’s verbatim staging of the US Senate’s confirmation hearings of four of Donald Trump’s political appointeesOne of th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:48AMRoyal Court, LondonSimon Stephens’ experimental new piece about grief and urban alienation is intentionally ‘fluid and contradictory’ – but also baffling and obscureSimon Stephens is…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:02AMThe Old Vic, we read, is "going dark" for the summer: a far more expressive phrase than being "shut", since it implies the temporary extinction of light. But it's also a potent reminder that…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:31PMThe broadcaster’s play Keeping in Touch, aired on Radio 4, is a reply to the classic 1978 drama about the pair’s clandestine seven-year relationship“Truth in drama is forever elusive,�…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:48PMTrafalgar Studios, LondonSimon Callow directs a starry young cast in a revival of Christopher Hampton’s astonishing 70s play about academic havocChristopher Hampton’s comedy of academic …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:54PMThe West End is becoming a Broadway-like shop window for musicals and spectaculars. Hytner and Starr’s theatre devoted to new plays is to be welcomedWhat is instantly striking about the in…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:42AM
