Glenda Jackson’s King Lear shows that men play unhinged warlords better than women
Dynastic affairs and international relations were once a seamless continuum. Royal weddings accompanied peace treaties. An heirless realm was vulnerable…
Like a kids’ entertainer on crack: Amadeus reviewed
Amadeus by Peter Shaffer is haunted by its own antecedents. Viewers are apt to feel that a new production lacks…
One of the ugliest nights of my life: A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer reviewed
Great subject, terminal illness. Popular dramas like Love Story, Terms of Endearment and My Night With Reg handle the issue…
A ziggurat of bilge: Oil at the Almeida reviewed
Ella Hickson’s new play analyses our relationship with oil using the sketch format. First, there’s a candlelit soap opera set…
Dazzling intellectual panto – but read Ulysses first: Travesties at the Menier reviewed
Travesties is a multi-layered confection of art, song, literature and pastiche. Tiny snippets of it are true. In Zurich, in…
Little to relish in this bracing portrait of a vain, brilliant fool: The Libertine reviewed
Here are three roles all actors love to play. The drunk (no need to learn your lines), the dementia victim…
Kate Tempest's poetry is simply no good
Kate Tempest, a 30 year old dramatist and poet, has an appeal that’s hard to fathom. Is it all in…
Hilarious, puzzling, boring: No Man’s Land at the Wyndham’s reviewed
No Man’s Land isn’t quite as great as its classic status suggests. At first sight the script is a bit…
Crowd-bewitching magic from Kathryn Hunter: Young Vic’s The Emperor reviewed
The Emperor seems like a worthy lesson in Ethiopian history. Haile Selassie’s final days are recounted by a retinue of…
What RSC’s The Alchemist needs is a James Corden or Matt Lucas
Coleridge deemed the narrative structure of The Alchemist perfect. But, I wonder. A landowner quits plague-ridden London and his cunning…
John Osborne’s The Entertainer is a big, fat, boring slice of prime-time chitchat
Kenneth Branagh’s obsession with Larry Olivier’s career is becoming such a bizarre act of theatrical necromancy that it deserves to…
Almeida’s new play blames Britain for the ills of the Congo – when the problem is clearly aid
In the 1980s, supermarkets stocked a fruit juice named ‘Um Bongo’ with the strapline ‘They drink it in the Congo!’.…
Did Rodgers and Hammerstein intend Allegro for the theatre? Or for euthanasia treatment?
‘European premiere of classic American musical’ is a phrase that deeply alarms the experienced playgoer. As I tootled along to…
Luvvie anger over Brexit is palpable at Edinburgh – and it’s exposing their true colours
Luvvie anger over Brexit is palpable. Lloyd Evans ponders the tantrums of the arts crowd
Nietzsche, Lembit Opik, the NHS and taxes: Edinburgh Festival Fringe roundup
Dominic Frisby is an actor best known for voicing the booking.com adverts (‘Booking dot com, booking dot yeah’). Voiceover specialists…
A filthy Noël Coward, snotty Frog, mad Swede and Maggie: Edinburgh Festival Fringe roundup
Plus: Geoff Norcott, a refreshingly brilliant new comedic voice, whose ascent Beeb censorship will impede. See him live at the Underbelly
Platitudes, banalities and plotlines that punch each other in the face: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child reviewed
Consider it commercially. So powerful is the pull of the Potter franchise that the characters could simply re-enact the plot…
Excellent – even if Jesus is a bit sulky: Jesus Christ Superstar reviewed
An inspired decision to stage Jesus Christ Superstar in a summer theatre in Regent’s Park. The action takes place outdoors,…
This fracking ‘satire’ can frack off
Fracking is a British tradition. Since 1969 more than 200 sites have used hydraulic fracturing ‘without environmental catastrophes’ according to…
A new role any actor will kill to play: Unreachable reviewed
Anthony Neilson is an Arts Council favourite known for trivial but impenetrable plays with off-putting names like The Wonderful World…
Brian Friel’s miserable snapshot of Ireland is libellous blarney: Faith Healer reviewed
Does anyone believe Brian Friel’s libellous blarney? He portrays Ireland in the 20th century as an economic basket case where…
A spy thriller by a writer with no knowledge of spying or thrilling: Hampstead Theatre’s Wild reviewed
Mike Bartlett’s curious blank-verse drama Charles III became an international hit. His new effort examines the cut-throat world of dark-web…
Worth catching for Vanessa Redgrave's scary-witch routine alone: Almeida's Richard III reviewed
When Richard III’s bones were unearthed in a Leicester car park, Frankie Boyle suggested the headline ‘Bent royal found at…
The dancers are so attractive they should be arrested – & where Aladdin is set they would be
Gauche, perhaps, to complain about Aladdin but it slightly deserves it. The terrific Genie opens the show and then disappears…
Brecht’s work won’t survive the 21st century: The Threepenny Opera reviewed
Bertolt Brecht took The Threepenny Opera from an 18th-century script by John Gay and relocated it to Victorian London. This…
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