Theatre
The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler, Theatre Royal, BrightonThursday, 14 May 2015
The author of such inimitably evocative melancholia as “If All The Cornflakes” and the many episodes of “Life In A Scotch Sitting Room”, Scottish poet and songwriter Ivor Cutler had a stellar cult following for many decades until his death in 2006.... Read more... |
Communicating Doors, Menier Chocolate FactoryThursday, 14 May 2015
Genre mixing is a perilous business. Successful hybrids use duelling forms to re-contextualise or revolutionise; others wind up fatally diluting their disparate elements. Ayckbourn’s 1994 sci-fi comedy thriller – featuring, at its nadir, a farcical... Read more... |
The Father, Tricycle TheatreWednesday, 13 May 2015
André is losing time. It’s not just his perennially mislaid watch, but whole hours, weeks, years. Is he still living in his Paris flat, or did he move in with his daughter Anne? Is she married, divorced, leaving the country with a new boyfriend? And... Read more... |
Hay Fever, Duke of York's TheatreTuesday, 12 May 2015
"I sometimes wish we were more normal," sighs one of the adult Bliss children in Noel Coward’s country-house comedy. But it’s her family’s self-dramatising abnormality that provides both the froth and the substance of this early play, written in a... Read more... |
Beyond Bollywood, London PalladiumTuesday, 12 May 2015
It seems almost redundant to critique a show that so ably – if unconsciously – critiques itself. “The power of Bollywood is it’s unique!” cries one character, before squandering that uniqueness in tired East/West fusion; "Dance should have feeling... Read more... |
The Angry Brigade, Bush TheatreFriday, 08 May 2015
Today, terrorism means killing as many innocent people as possible. Fear is created by completely random attacks, so that no one feels safe. But there was a time, in the past, when political anarchists would focus their attacks on selected targets... Read more... |
The Vote, Donmar WarehouseFriday, 08 May 2015
Thank fuck, it’s over. I mean the General Election. No more campaigning, no more leader debates, no more anti-Miliband hysteria. But there’s still no end to theatre gimmicks that exploit public interest in what is clearly one of the tightest... Read more... |
The Audience, Apollo TheatreWednesday, 06 May 2015
As The Queen gains an audience with the latest royal addition, her theatrical alter ego returns to the West End, with Kristin Scott Thomas inheriting Tony-nominated Helen Mirren’s role in Peter Morgan’s updated revival. Callaghan is out; au courant... Read more... |
The Lads In Their Hundreds, Theatre Royal, BrightonWednesday, 06 May 2015
World War One poems can become too familiar. So can the war itself, its five years of centenary commemorations so far suffering from excessive patriotism, a sense of uncomprehending disconnection from the gone generation which lived it, and a... Read more... |
The Apple Family Plays, Brighton DomeWednesday, 06 May 2015
"I hear America singing," wrote Walt Whitman, the American poet whose language playwright Richard Nelson has co-opted for the title of the second (Sweet and Sad) of his remarkable quartet of Apple Family Plays. And those wanting to know what song is... Read more... |
Beyond Caring, National TheatreTuesday, 05 May 2015
Recent plays with the verb “to care” in their titles – another is Michael Wynne’s Who Cares – suggests that the inequalities of life in Britain today can no longer be treated with our habitual indifference. This transfer of Alexander... Read more... |
Lungs, Roundabout at Regency Square, BrightonTuesday, 05 May 2015
A couple stand on the stage, squaring up to each other. They are in the middle of an argument. The Man has just, out of the blue, suggested they have a baby. The Woman, understandably, needs time to adjust to the idea. Particularly as they are in... Read more... |
