Theatre
The Buddha of Suburbia, Barbican Theatre review - farcical fun, but what about the issues?Friday, 01 November 2024Hanif Kureishi’s 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia begins like this: “My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost”. Almost. Yes, that's good. We are in 1970s south-east London, and this immediately introduces, despite its... Read more... |
Dr Strangelove, Noël Coward Theatre review - an evening of different partsWednesday, 30 October 2024Even by Stanley Kubrick’s standards, Dr Strangelove went through an extraordinary evolutionary process. After starting it off as a serious film about nuclear war based on the 1958 novel Two Hours to Doom, he decided to turn it into a comedy with the... Read more... |
Guards at the Taj, Orange Tree Theatre review - miniature marvel with rich resonancesSaturday, 02 November 2024It’s 1648 in Agra, and an excitable young guardsman has come up with an idea: a giant flying platform that he calls an “aeroplat”. As he might slide off it in transit, for good measure he gives it a belt to tie him down. It would be a “seat belt”,... Read more... |
How To Survive Your Mother, King's Head Theatre review - mummy issues drive autobiographical dramedyThursday, 31 October 2024It is unsurprising to learn in the post-show Q&A that each audience receives Jonathan Maitland’s new play based on his 2006 memoir differently. My house laughed a lot (me especially) but some see the tragic overwhelming the comic, and the laughs... Read more... |
Reykjavik, Hampstead Theatre review - drama frozen by waves of detailMonday, 28 October 2024“Don’t take a piss in the house of a woman you have made a widow.” The mixture of earthy comedy and tragic pain in this piece of parental advice is typical of the tone of Richard Bean’s Reykjavik, his new work play which explores the lives of the... Read more... |
The Forsyte Saga Parts 1 and 2, Park Theatre review - if Chekhov did soap operasSaturday, 26 October 2024The misadventures and misbehaviours of the English upper-middle class is catnip for TV executives. All those posh types on which us hoi polloi can sit in delicious self-righteous judgement, as we marvel at their cut glass accents, well-tailored... Read more... |
The Wild Duck, The Norwegian Ibsen Company, Coronet Theatre review - slow burn, devastating climaxFriday, 25 October 2024“I think this is all very strange,” declares 14-year-old Hedvig Ekdal at the end of The Wild Duck’s third act, just as everything is about to plunge into a terrifying vortex. Alan Lucien Øyen's’s production is pointedly strange from the start, a... Read more... |
Autumn, Park Theatre review - on stage as in politics, Brexit drama promises much, but loses its wayMonday, 21 October 2024Theatre is a strange dish. A recipe can be stacked with delicious ingredients, cooked to exacting standards, taste-test beautifully at the halfway mark, yet leave you not quite full, not exactly satisfied, disappointed that it didn’t come out quite... Read more... |
The Fear of 13, Donmar Warehouse review - powerful analysis of a gross injusticeFriday, 18 October 2024There is star casting, and there is casting the right star – not the same thing. The Donmar’s new production, The Fear of 13, succeeds in the latter category, in spades. The star in question is Adrien Brody, a child actor who left stage work... Read more... |
The Duchess [of Malfi], Trafalgar Theatre review - actors imprisoned by confused time travellingFriday, 18 October 2024John Webster’s sour, bloody tale of brotherly greed and vice has been updated by the playwright Zinnie Harris, who also directs her own text at the Trafalgar. The title has a handy [of Malfi] added. But do we really know where we are? Or which... Read more... |
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, Marylebone Theatre review - explosive play for todayFriday, 18 October 2024An incendiary play has opened at the Marylebone, the adventurous venue just off Baker Street. Bigger houses were apparently unwilling to stage it, fearing anti-Israeli protests. Their loss.Nathan Englander has expanded his short story of the same... Read more... |
Land of the Free, Southwark Playhouse review - John Wilkes Booth portrayed in play that resonates across 160 yearsFriday, 18 October 2024Straddling the USA Presidential elections, Simple8’s run of Land of the Free could not be better timed, teaching us an old lesson that wants continual learning – the more things change, the more they stay the same.We open on the Booth family kids... Read more... |
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