Monday, September 15, 2025

Theatre Picasso review – Pablo tears reality apart in a riotous celebration of his raging genius by Jonathan Jones

Tate Modern, LondonFrom filthy kissing to bullfights, fascists and drag acts, the artist who shattered visual conventions is thrillingly, forcefully alive in this illuminating show The Acrob…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:24PM

‘There’s magic, blood and gore!’ Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton on touring Inside No 9 – and being megastars in China by Brian Logan

As the show based on their cult TV hit goes on the road, the duo discuss haunted theatres, feeling like arthritic swans and what it was like being mobbed in Shanghai How do you make a shoppi…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:24PM

Dreamgirls set for Broadway return with worldwide search to find stars by Benjamin Lee

Musical, which originated on Broadway in 1981, will return in 2026 with auditions taking place in cities across the world The hit musical Dreamgirls will return to Broadway with a global sea…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:10AM

High Noon heads for the West End as Billy Crudup takes on Gary Cooper role by Chris Wiegand

The Tony award-winning actor will play the marshal in a London stage adaptation of the 1952 western that won Cooper an Oscar Billy Crudup is to take on the role that won Gary Cooper an Oscar…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:06AM

Janeites unite: Austen festival in Bath celebrates 250th anniversary of author’s birth by Leah Rustomjee. Photographs By Ellie Ramsden

The annual festival, now the largest and longest-running of its kind, first took place in 2001 and has since grown to a 10-day programme drawing thousands of visitors from around the world �…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:02AM

Small Acts of Love review – tragedy and tenderness in Lockerbie eulogy by Mark Fisher

Citizens theatre, GlasgowThe people of a small Scottish town offer hope to bereaved families in the aftermath of the 1988 bombing in a moving music-theatre show What a joy to hear applause a…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:02AM

Ambika Mod and Daisy Ridley to star in Pride and Prejudice live reading fundraiser for Gaza by Catherine Shoard

Nish Kumar, Jenna Coleman and Morfydd Clark will also feature in London event for Medical Aid for Palestinians The One Day star Ambika Mod and Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley are to lead the cast …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:54AM
Sunday, September 14, 2025

Creditors review – Charles Dance, Geraldine James and Nicholas Farrell get gasps and guffaws from Strindberg by Mark Lawson

Orange Tree theatre, LondonDirector Tom Littler finds the comedy in the Swedish tragedian’s play about how people use each other up in love and art In an interview before his production of…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:32PM

Not Your Superwoman review – Letitia Wright and Golda Rosheuvel are magnetic in mother-daughter drama by Arifa Akbar

Bush theatre, LondonBoth screen stars captivate in Emma Dennis-Edwards’s tale of Gen Z Erica and emotionally distant Joyce Two screen stars blaze on stage in this mother-daughter drama: Le…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:24AM

London City Ballet: Momentum review – lovely dancing set to beautiful music by Lyndsey Winship

Sadler’s Wells, LondonAlina Cojocaru is breathtaking, Ratmansky’s music zings and Joseph Taylor gets a fantastic angry solo It’s exciting when artists push boundaries, melt genres, re…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12AM
Saturday, September 13, 2025

The Guide #208: How theatre is holding its own in the age of artificial intelligence by Lucinda Everett

In this week’s newsletter: Live performances offering authentic human connection are drawing crowds to the stage, as AI-driven drivel worms its way into other creative industries Last year…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:24AM
Friday, September 12, 2025

Self Esteem to star as raging rock star in revival of David Hare’s Teeth ’n’ Smiles by Chris Wiegand

Rebecca Lucy Taylor will play Maggie, a role originated by Helen Mirren, in a ‘landmark’ 50th anniversary production in London in March Fifty years after Helen Mirren originated the role…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:36PM

‘I haven’t even googled how to write a play!’: Nima Taleghani bringing rap to the National Theatre by Miriam Gillinson

The Heartstopper star’s exhilarating reboot of Euripides is the first debut play to grace the hallowed Olivier stage – but it nearly didn’t happen. ‘Its not in my bones,’ he says N…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:36PM

Dr Freud Will See You Now, Mrs Hitler review – dangerous jokes as bedwetter grows into a psychopath by Mark Lawson

Upstairs at the Gatehouse, LondonFizzing with intelligence and featuring a catastrophic misunderstanding and a deeply symbolic cigar, this richly imagined play feels all too plausible If the…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:24AM

Seagull: True Story review – Putin’s war overshadows a heroically meta staging of Chekhov by Arifa Akbar

Marylebone theatre, LondonRussian director Alexander Molochnikov’s play within a play raises vital questions about the cost and creativity of exile but is undone by its own cleverness This…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:18AM

Murmuration Level 2 review – mesmerising dance multiplies in tutting fractal forms by Lyndsey Winship

Peacock theatre, LondonStarting from a single dancer, an intricate moving patterns of limbs forms a complex weave of shifting patterns in Sadeck Berrabah’s technically impressive show Ther…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12AM

Endgame review – Mathew Horne and Douglas Hodge bring macabre fizz to Beckett by Arifa Akbar

Ustinov Studio, BathAs a pair of wisecracking vaudevillian entertainers, the stars balance the comedy and desolation in Lindsay Posner’s production This desolate masterpiece by Samuel Beck…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:02AM

Letter: Giles Havergal obituary by Gordon McDougall

Through the long hot summer of 1964 I was assistant director to Giles Havergal in weekly rep at Her Majesty’s theatre, Barrow-in-Furness. Its main entrance was the width of a normal doorwa…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:54AM
Thursday, September 11, 2025

Kenneth Branagh returns to the RSC for The Tempest and The Cherry Orchard by Chris Wiegand Stage Editor

Next summer, the star will appear in Stratford-upon-Avon first as Prospero and then alongside Helen Hunt in Chekhov’s classic More than 40 years after his star-making performance as Henry …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:36PM

Ideal review – stage return for Johnny Vegas’s TV weed dealer fails to score by Nick Ahad

Lowry, Salford Reprise of Graham Duff’s cult comedy delights the series’ fans but there’s not much here for anyone else If you are a fan of the cult BBC Three sitcom Ideal, you should …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12AM

The Last Stand of Mrs Mary Whitehouse review – Maxine Peake takes us behind moral crusader’s curtain by David Jays

Nottingham PlayhouseDeft and witty drama follows the religious conservative campaigner as she rails against blasphemy, porn and homosexuality A culture warrior before her time, Mary Whitehou…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:02AM

Cow | Deer review – extraordinary sound journey into the lives of animals by Chris Wiegand

Royal Court theatre, London Katie Mitchell, Nina Segal and Melanie Wilson’s ‘experiment in performance’ uses expressive performance and inventive sonic effects to bring a wordless worl…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:02AM
Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Our Brother review – power games with Pol Pot by Mark Fisher

Òran Mór, GlasgowA naive Scottish academic is granted an audience with the genocidal Cambodian dictator in Jack MacGregor’s play If you met a genocidal dictator how would you react? For …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:12AM

The mystery of the coffee-shop meltdown – told by dancers, a drummer and a brown bear by Lyndsey Winship

Frauke Requardt and Vivienne Franzmann’s dance-theatre show Anatomy of Survival examines 23 versions of reality in ‘powder keg’ cities One morning, playwright Vivienne Franzmann was qu…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:24AM
Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Billy Porter recovering from ‘serious case of sepsis’ as Broadway show closes early by Sian Cain

The 55-year-old actor has been playing Emcee in Cabaret, which will now shut a month earlier than planned Billy Porter is “recovering from a serious case of sepsis”, forcing the early cl…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:24AM

The play that changed my life: ‘Pinter’s Betrayal made me think: this is how I want to write’ by Hannah Patterson

In his reverse-chronology play about a married couple dealing with an affair, Harold Pinter asked the audience to find meaning in unspoken words I didn’t see Harold Pinter’s Betrayal on …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:24AM

‘We spent a week on the cow birth!’ The eye-opening play about animals with sound effects instead of words by David Jays

Cow | Deer gets ‘between the ears’ of animals, creating mouse noises with polystyrene balls and comparing wild creatures with industrialised ones. So if there’s no dialogue, what did i…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:24AM
Monday, September 8, 2025

Hedda review – Ibsen gets a Saltburn makeover in Amazon’s ill-advised romp by Richard Lawson In Toronto

Toronto film festival: Nia DaCosta ups the nastiness of Hedda Gabler in a stylish but over-egged adaptation with lead Tessa Thompson losing the film to a standout Nina Hoss Henrik Ibsen’s …

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48PM

Hamnet review – Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal excel in stately Shakespeare drama with overwhelming finale by Richard Lawson In Toronto

Toronto film festival: The two stars are knockouts in Chloé Zhao’s poignant adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel with a stirring tearjerker ending Maggie O’Farrell’s lauded…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:48PM

‘It will be frightening but you have to do it’: Andrew Lincoln and Alicia Vikander’s nerve-shredding stage return by Emma John

Can two world-famous actors and auteur Simon Stone bring 19th-century Norway screaming into the modern world? They talk mean directors, bathtub revelations and reinventing Ibsen’s The Lady…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:36AM

Bill Posley: The Day I Accidentally Went to War review – veteran comic drops truth bombs by Brian Logan

Soho theatre, LondonThe US comic and TV writer’s account of his military service in Iraq is exuberant, enlightening, and flies the flag for the plight of veterans At one point in Bill Posl…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:36AM

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