Theatre Features
Christian McKay: Me and Orson WellesTuesday, 01 December 2009![]()
"I must apologise for talking ten to the dozen," begins Christian McKay with a confidential air. "I do it when I'm nervous. I'm a rookie - I've never done this before. The stars get media training, but I thought, ‘I'm a naturally gregarious person and I'd rather be an open book'." It can't last, one thinks ruefully. Read more...
|
Terry Pratchett's Nation at the NationalMonday, 23 November 2009![]() Tomorrow sees the opening night of Terry Pratchett’s Nation at the National Theatre. Adapted by Mark Ravenhill and directed by Melly Still, it is the latest in what has become a tradition of epic end-of-year family extravaganzas at the National such as Coram Boy, which Still also directed, and War Horse. But although Pratchett is one of UK’s top selling authors, neither Still nor... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Cardiff: Birth of a National TheatreSunday, 08 November 2009![]()
From seat 17 of Row 8, Block M35, Stair 14, Level 4, in a gathering of 75,000 spectators, almost all of them Welsh, it’s difficult to argue with the idea that Wales already has a national theatre. It’s called the Millennium Stadium (picture below). Just before kick-off yesterday afternoon, from my high-altitude perch, I looked across to the distant tunnel opposite. Its jaws belched fire and smoke and, in due course, a pumped-up team in red shirts. Read more... |
Love Never Dies: The LaunchThursday, 08 October 2009The sealed invitation was from the man himself: no, not Andrew Lloyd Webber (who can, as we know, work in mysterious ways) but the Phantom. Nightly (and twice on Tuesdays and Saturdays) he vanishes from his underground lair deep in the bowels of the Paris Opera House (aka Her Majesty’s Theatre) leaving only his familiar half-mask as a symbolic reminder of his continuing omnipotence on stages throughout the world. Read more... |
Pages
Advertising feature
★★★★★
‘A compulsive, involving, emotionally stirring evening – theatre’s answer to a page-turner.’
The Observer, Kate Kellaway
Direct from a sold-out season at Kiln Theatre the five star, hit play, The Son, is now playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre for a strictly limited season.
★★★★★
‘This final part of Florian Zeller’s trilogy is the most powerful of all.’
The Times, Ann Treneman
Written by the internationally acclaimed Florian Zeller (The Father, The Mother), lauded by The Guardian as ‘the most exciting playwright of our time’, The Son is directed by the award-winning Michael Longhurst.
Book by 30 September and get tickets from £15*
with no booking fee.
latest in today

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...

In Italy, they did it differently. Their pulp fiction tales of suburban transgression appeared between yellow covers on new stands...

Will Smith’s new album, Based on a True Story, is a prime example of why some comebacks should remain hypothetical. After two decades...

Forget, for a moment, the legend and the lustre. If you knew nothing about Riccardo Muti’s half-century of history with Verdi’s Messa da...

Resurrecting the origins of old rock stars is becoming quite the thing, After cinema’s Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Bob Dylan and...

The End, a quasi-musical from Joshua Oppenheimer, who has previously only produced ...
Creatives – or creatures? In the 1660s, women – having been banned from working as actors in previously more...

I can’t stop reading and re-reading the review copy I got of a new book, out next week. Liam Inscoe-Jones’s ...

Just now, the notion of a long-term project that concludes in 2041 sounds like an optimistic bet on the far future worthy of some 18th-century...

La Cocina is one of those films that cuts an excellent trailer, succinctly delivering just enough characters, plot and visual...