Theatre
Passion Play; The Match Box
How fashions change. Peter Nichols’s adultery drama, Passion Play, will seem tame and rather conventional to modern audiences. It was written in 1981 at a time when the rites and… Read more
Josie Rourke has a hit at last with The Weir, The Tempest: a karaoke version of all
The Weir is the ultimate hit-from-nowhere. It was written in 1997 by the 26-year-old Conor McPherson. It opened at the Royal Court Upstairs and glided over to Broadway and then… Read more
Adrian Lester is one of the great Othellos; Glory Dazed
Amazing news at the National. Nicholas Hytner has invented a time machine that can bring Shakespeare to bumpkins who’ve never bothered to read him. His up-to-date Othello begins with Venice’s… Read more
You can’t judge the RSC’s As You Like It with the crude star system
Grumbler: I suppose I have to begin by asking whether, if you’ll forgive the obvious question, you actually did like it? Optimist: Equally obviously, your question is too simple. Remember… Read more
Theatre: Children of the Sun; The Arrest of Ai Wei Wei
They’re back. Howard Davies and his translator Andrew Upton had a well-deserved hit in 2007 with Gorky’s Philistines at the Lyttelton. Children of the Sun, which Gorky wrote in jail… Read more
Upstairs, downstairs
Never a dull moment at the Jermyn Street Theatre. It’s a titchy venue, the size of a gents’ loo, nestling beneath a cavernous flight of stairs in the nameless hinterland… Read more
Theatre review: The Low Road and Quasimodo
A lap of honour at the Royal Court. Bruce Norris has been one of the big discoveries of artistic director Dominic Cooke, who takes his bow by directing The Low… Read more
Peter and Alice
Inspired writer, John Logan. His 2009 play, Red, delved brilliantly into the gloom-ridden, suicidal mind of the misanthropic modernist painter Mark Rothko. The play’s unflinching and sordid honesty earned the… Read more
Jonathan Slinger’s Hamlet
In his ‘Love Song’, T.S. Eliot’s ageing bank-clerk J. Alfred Prufrock protests he isn’t ‘Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be…’. David Farr’s new production sets out to put this… Read more
‘In the beginning was breath’
Declan Donnellan is riding high. His acclaimed production of the burlesque classic Ubu Roi has confirmed his membership of the elite group of British directors who enjoy renown across Continental… Read more
The Book of Mormon is toothless, jokeless, plotless and pointless
Impossible, surely. The Book of Mormon could never live up to the accolades lavished on it by America’s critics. ‘Blissfully original, outspoken, irreverent and hilarious,’ was a typical review. The… Read more
Juvenile delinquency
Study the greats. That’s the advice to all budding playwrights. And there are few contemporary dramatists more worthy of appreciative scrutiny than Bruce Norris, whose savage and hilarious comedy, Clybourne… Read more
The Audience review: Helen Mirren leads a Mike Yarwood show with Oscar-level talent
Peter Morgan has extracted more cash from the royal ‘brand’ than the Buckingham Palace giftshop. He’s at it again with The Audience, a fictional dramatisation of the weekly conversations between… Read more
Transatlantic traffic
There has been a lot of discussion recently, prompted by the start of President Obama’s second term, about the ‘Special Relationship’ between the United Kingdom and the United States. What… Read more
Aversion therapy
It’s been a while, I have to say, but last week I saw a show that thrilled me to the core. Trelawny of the Wells, the Donmar’s latest offering, is… Read more
Losing the plot
Who got the most out of the credit crunch? Security guards, repossession firms, bailed-out banks and, of course, playwrights. Anders Lustgarten is the latest to cash in on five years… Read more
Sheer torture
Ever been to a ‘promenade performance’? Barmy, really. The audience is conducted through a makeshift theatre space — often a disused ironworks — where the show is performed in disjointed… Read more
Moving heaven and earth
Although I’ve some doubt — and this would be applauded by Galileo — whether in everyday life it matters very much to know whether the sun goes round the earth… Read more
Fatal flaw
A new play about the banking crisis at the Bush. Writer, Clare Duffy, has spent a year or two badgering financiers and economists with questions about ‘the fundamentals’. ‘What is… Read more
English eccentrics
Quartermaine’s Terms is a period piece within a period piece. It’s set in that part of the early 1960s which was still effectively the 1950s. St John Quartermaine, a shy… Read more
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