thu 14/11/2024

Theatre

Burnt Up Love, Finborough Theatre review - scorching new play

Mac is in prison for a long stretch. He is calm, contemplative almost, understands how to do his time and has only one rule – nobody, cellmate or guard, can touch the photo of his daughter, then three years old, attached to his wall. Though he...

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L’Addition, BAC review - top billing for physical comedy duo

Can experimental theatre survive the decades? This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Forced Entertainment theatre company, whose mission is summarised (by themselves) as “tearing up the rulebook”.It is also the 50th anniversary of this venue,...

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Barcelona, Duke of York's Theatre review - Lily Collins migrates from France to Spain

The Catalan capital has given its name to a famous number in the Stephen Sondheim musical, Company. And here it is lending geographical specificity to the second two-hander, following the far-superior Camp Siegfried, from American writer Bess Wohl...

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Guards at the Taj, Orange Tree Theatre review - miniature marvel with rich resonances

It’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”,...

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The Buddha of Suburbia, Barbican Theatre review - farcical fun, but what about the issues?

Hanif 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...

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How To Survive Your Mother, King's Head Theatre review - mummy issues drive autobiographical dramedy

It 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...

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Dr Strangelove, Noël Coward Theatre review - an evening of different parts

Even 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...

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Reykjavik, Hampstead Theatre review - drama frozen by waves of detail

“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...

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The Forsyte Saga Parts 1 and 2, Park Theatre review - if Chekhov did soap operas

The 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...

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The Wild Duck, The Norwegian Ibsen Company, Coronet Theatre review - slow burn, devastating climax

“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...

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Autumn, Park Theatre review - on stage as in politics, Brexit drama promises much, but loses its way

Theatre 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...

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The Fear of 13, Donmar Warehouse review - powerful analysis of a gross injustice

There 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...

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