Theatre Features
Aspiration, ecstasy, melancholy: 'The Tale' of TorbaySaturday, 09 September 2017
A dark star explodes. I cannot remember the future. A figure appears on the beach. We're always reaching out. It's always just over there. We're always dreaming. The grey rocks, the red sand, the blue sea. Everywhere, the sea. Everything you ever wanted to be. Read more... |
'The kaleidoscope of an entire lifetime of memories'Thursday, 07 September 2017
When director Bruce Guthrie first gave me the script for Man to Man by Manfred Karge, I was immediately mesmerised by the language, each of the 27 scenes leapt off the page. Some are a few short sentences, other pages long; every one a perfectly formed fragment from a unique and potentially broken mind, flipping from prose to poetry. Read more... |
The 'self-experimenter': Howard Brenton on Strindberg in crisisMonday, 04 September 2017
I wrote The Blinding Light to try to understand the mental and spiritual crisis that August Strindberg suffered in February 1896. Deeply disturbed, plagued by hallucinations, he holed up in various hotel rooms in Paris, most famously in the Hotel Orfila in the Rue d’Assas. Read more... |
Christopher Shinn: 'I did not know if I would be alive and someone wanted me to write a play'Monday, 14 August 2017
Plays do not usually come into being in isolation. When I search my gmail archive I see that my first communication with Robert Icke about a commission came in April 2012. Rupert Goold and Rob were still at Headlong then. I was busy so asked that we keep the conversation going but not commit to anything. Read more... |
h.Club 100 Awards: Theatre and Performance - is this a new golden age for the stage?Tuesday, 08 August 2017
Could we be inhabiting a new golden age of theatre? It sometimes seems that way, not least in the blurring of boundaries that increasingly is the norm. Few might have guessed, for instance, that the author of the hottest play in years – Jack Thorne, who wrote Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – would be a by-product of the Royal Court. Read more... |
When Sam Shepard was a LondonerMonday, 31 July 2017
Sam Shepard came to live in London in 1971, nursing ambitions to be a rock musician. When he went home three years later, he was soon to be found on the drumstool of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour. But in between, not long after he arrived in London, he was waylaid by the burgeoning fringe scene, and the rock god project took a back seat. Read more... |
'You win in the end!' Deborah Bruce introduces her play 'The House They Grew Up In'Friday, 14 July 2017
My inspiration for The House They Grew Up In, my new play at Chichester Festival Theatre came about five years ago, in the café of an art gallery near my house. Read more... |
Matthew Dunster on adapting 'A Tale of Two Cities'Tuesday, 04 July 2017
When you are adapting a novel like A Tale of Two Cities, it's a privilege to sit with a great piece of writing for a considerable amount of time. You also feel secure (and a bit cheeky) in the knowledge that another writer has already done most of the work. Read more... |
theartsdesk at The Hospital ClubWednesday, 03 May 2017
The Arts Desk is delighted to announce a new partnership with The Hospital Club in Covent Garden. There are plenty of private members club in central London, but The Hospital Club is uniquely a creative hub with its own television studio, gallery and performance space, which for certain events are open to non-members. Read more... |
'It was probably the most effective act of resistance in the history of the Third Reich'Sunday, 30 April 2017
“I’ve got a terrible confession to make”, I said to my long-suffering partner who had been away for the weekend with our young daughter. “Oh yes,” I could see her thinking, “what have you done now?” “Well, I’ve written a play about the Nazi persecution of the disabled,” was my shifty reply. The truth is it’s such a disgusting subject, I was almost ashamed of what I’d done. Read more... |
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★★★★★
‘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.
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