Arcola
Rose Matafeo, Arcola Theatre review - Starstruck star muses on loveMonday, 14 October 2024Rose Matafeo knows how to make an entrance, as she enters the stage with a choreographed dance. She's useless at ending things, she says – shows, relationships – so she's going to start On and On and On with something memorable. She doesn't... Read more... |
Gigi and Dar, Arcola Theatre review - a war-game of two halvesThursday, 10 October 2024The writer-director Josh Azouz and actor-director Kathryn Hunter have collaborated on a piece exploring the ethics of being an army of occupation. Or, at least, I think that’s what Gigi and Dar is aiming for. The set gives little away about the... Read more... |
Don't Destroy Me, Arcola Theatre review - a theatre history curioWednesday, 17 January 2024British Theatre abounds in forgotten writers. And in ones whose early work is too rarely revived. One such is Michael Hastings, best known for Tom & Viv, his 1984 biographical drama about TS Eliot and his wife Vivienne, so in theory it’s great... Read more... |
Under the Black Rock, Arcola Theatre review - political thriller turns soapySaturday, 11 March 2023“Darkly comic thrillers” (as they like to say) set in Ireland tracking how families, or quasi-families, fall apart under pressure are very much in vogue just now. Whether The Banshees of Inisherin will garner the Oscars haul it hardly deserves... Read more... |
Dinner with Groucho, Arcola Theatre review - often opaqueFriday, 25 November 2022The set at the Arcola for Frank McGuinness’s Dinner with Groucho naturally features a table with two place settings and a backdrop of clouds in a blue sky. Overhead are pendant globe lights that will transform into stars. But the floor is a key... Read more... |
The Dance of Death, Arcola Theatre review - hate sustains a marriage in new version of Strindberg classicFriday, 08 July 2022Rebecca Lenkiewicz's adaptation of August Strindberg's 1900 paean to the power of loathing over loving uses the now familiar trick of dressing characters in period detail while giving them the full range of the 21st century's argot of disdain and... Read more... |
The Daughter-in-Law, Arcola Theatre review - searing simplicityThursday, 17 January 2019There’s a stark power to Jack Gamble’s production of DH Lawrence’s The Daughter-in-Law, which has transferred to the Arcola’smain stage after an acclaimed opening run in the venue’s downstairs studio last May. It still plays with a concentrated... Read more... |
Stop and Search, Arcola Theatre review - a murky view of modern-day BritainWednesday, 16 January 2019A road tunnel through the Alps, stretching underneath Mont Blanc: Tel (Shaun Mason) is ploughing home to London in a borrowed Merc, strung out and sleepless and having been to see his other girl in Monte Carlo. The Arcola Theatre premiere of Stop... Read more... |
Thebes Land, Arcola Theatre - meta-theatre at its most thrillingMonday, 18 September 2017Thebes Land returns to the Arcola Theatre as part of the wider CASA Latin American Theatre Festival, following a short 2016 run that resulted in an Off West End Award, or Offie, for Best Production. Director Daniel Goldman's pinpoint translation of... Read more... |
Richard III review - Greg Hicks gruesomely impressive as power-crazed rulerSaturday, 20 May 2017There may never have been a time when Shakespeare’s Richard III did not have contemporary relevance, but surely never more than it does right now. And it’s to the credit of director Mehmet Ergen that this production doesn’t go to town on it, but... Read more... |
First Person: 'Schizophrenia is still a taboo subject'Sunday, 16 October 2016On 10 October 2016, World Mental Health Day, the team of Belarus Free Theatre came back together to start the final stages of production for Tomorrow I Was Always a Lion, a new theatre show based on Arnhild Lauveng’s autobiographical book. Arnhild... Read more... |
The Sugar-Coated Bullets of the Bourgeoisie, Arcola TheatreSunday, 17 April 2016The playwright Anders Lustgarten has spent a considerable chunk of his life reading and writing and thinking about China, and clearly wants to set a few points straight. Tired of the persistent Western view of that country and its people as... Read more... |
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