Theatre
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bridge Theatre review – gender-juggling rompWednesday, 12 June 2019
Nicholas Hytner’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Bridge Theatre is a feat of exuberant brilliance, a gender-juggling romp that takes Shakespeare’s subversive text and polishes it so that it glints and shines like a glitterball at a disco. No holds... Read more... |
First Person: Matt Henry on fulfilling 'a dream come true' to play the legendary singer Sam CookeTuesday, 11 June 2019
When I first read One Night in Miami, I instantly felt a strong connection to the piece and its story. The fact that Sam Cooke, Malcolm X, Cassius Clay and Jim Brown, four iconic black men at the top of their game in 1964, actually... Read more... |
Bronx Gothic, Young Vic review - fervid intensityMonday, 10 June 2019
It’s hard, and finally fruitless to attempt to describe Okwui Okpokwasili’s Bronx Gothic in conventional terms of genre: combining elements of dance and theatre, this visceral solo performance transcends both. It engages with frantic movement at the... Read more... |
The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Cheek by Jowl/Pushkin Theatre, Barbican review - theatre satire updatedThursday, 06 June 2019
Director Declan Donnellan has a rich record of working with Russian actors: his previous walk on the Slavic side, the darkly powerful Measure for Measure that came to the Barbican four years ago, was preceded by some magnificent versions of... Read more... |
Education, Education, Education, Trafalgar Studios review - politics and pupils, mayhem and musicThursday, 06 June 2019
It's the 2nd May 1997, the morning after the night that swept New Labour into power. We’re in the staffroom of a school somewhere in Britain and the teachers are jubilant. They've been glued to their TV sets for the results and have shagged and... Read more... |
Wife, Kiln Theatre review - queer epic is joyful and intenseWednesday, 05 June 2019
In one lifetime, the many loves that once dare not speak their names have become part of everyday chatter. But it would be shortsighted to believe that ancient prejudices are easy to overcome, or that change does not run the risk of creating... Read more... |
King Hedley II, Theatre Royal Stratford East review - concentrated, enveloping dramaMonday, 03 June 2019
The huge achievement of the last two decades of August Wilson’s life, right up to his death in 2005, was his “American Century Cycle”, in which he charted the African American experience over that time frame decade by decade, its action set largely... Read more... |
The Starry Messenger, Wyndham's Theatre review - Matthew Broderick gets all cosmicThursday, 30 May 2019
A small-scale Off Broadway venture late in 2009, The Starry Messenger has arrived in London to mark the belated British stage debut of Matthew Broderick, the movie name much-loved on the New York stage. Reuniting the two-time Tony-winner with his... Read more... |
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's Globe review - a gallimaufry of acting stylesWednesday, 29 May 2019
Need Shakespeare 's Falstaff charm to be funny? Those warm, indulgent feelings won by Mrisho Mpoto in the amazing Globe to Globe's Swahili Merry Wives and by Christopher Benjamin in a period-pretty version are rarely encouraged by this season's... Read more... |
Rutherford and Son, National Theatre review - authentic northern taleTuesday, 28 May 2019
Githa Sowerby is the go-to playwright if you want a feminist slant on patriarchy in the industrial north in Edwardian times. Her 1912 classic, Rutherford and Son, has been regularly revived over the past 30 years, and now the National Theatreis... Read more... |
User Not Found, The CoffeeWorks Project review - solo play set in a café offers food for thoughtTuesday, 28 May 2019
Who is that slithering on the floor by your foot, or coming to rest by or upon your knee? Audiences lucky enough to find themselves at User Not Found, the latest from the ever-enterprising site-specific company Dante or Die, should be prepared to... Read more... |
Berlin: True Copy, Brighton Festival 2019 review - tricksy forgery masterclassTuesday, 28 May 2019
This brilliantly conceived and executed show is about provenance in art. It’s also about our perceptions of the truth. However, it’s a show where it would be churlish to reveal too much of what goes on. This is, of course, perverse since some will... Read more... |
