Theatre Reviews
Les Blancs, National Theatre at Home review – triumphant revival of forgotten classicFriday, 03 July 2020
Lorraine Hansberry’s debut, A Raisin in the Sun, was the first drama written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, where it opened in 1959. It is now an American classic, but it’s her last play, Les Blancs, that in the current context of the Black Lives Matter movement and resistance to institutional racism both in the US and UK feels even more relevant. Read more... |
Toast, Lawrence Batley Theatre online review - pungent adaptation of Nigel Slater's autobiographyFriday, 03 July 2020
I knew what a Howard Hodgkin painting would look like before I ever saw one because of Nigel Slater. There’s a recipe in one of his very early books, Real Cooking, for “A creamy, colourful, fragrant chicken curry” which he candidly admits is “seriously unauthentic”, with ingredients that will leave some purists “really pissed-off”. Read more... |
Birdsong, The Original Theatre Company online review – a gutsy experimentThursday, 02 July 2020
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks’ best-selling First World War novel, has been adapted quite a few times in its twenty-seven years. Read more... |
Hamilton, Disney+ review - puts us all in the room where it happenedWednesday, 01 July 2020
The movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights was meant to hit cinemas this summer, but, in response to Covid-19, has been put back to 2021. Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, National Theatre At Home review – a mad delightFriday, 26 June 2020
Nicholas Hytner’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, filmed for NT Live at the Bridge Theatre last summer, is – as it gleefully acknowledges – completely bonkers. But it doesn’t start out that way. Read more... |
The Last Five Years, The Other Palace Digital review - socially distanced heartbreakFriday, 26 June 2020
A musical featuring two people who are physically separated? Jason Robert Brown’s work is a shutdown natural – as this new digital theatre version demonstrates. Read more... |
Small Island, National Theatre At Home review – big-hearted story hits every beatFriday, 19 June 2020
A British-Jamaican man is confused. It's the Second World War, and he signed up for the RAF on the understanding that he would serve as a pilot overseas. But instead he's ended up as ground crew in a grey Lincolnshire village. "You are overseas, aren't you?" sneers his sergeant. Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's Globe online review - a seasonal treatTuesday, 16 June 2020
What could be better for a lockdown summer night "out" than a virtual visit to Shakespeare's Globe? Simultaneously in a theatre and the open air, we can share the visible enjoyment of hundreds of others, the very opposite of self-isolation and social distancing. Read more... |
The Madness of George III, National Theatre at Home review – a powerful, elegant depictionFriday, 12 June 2020
It has been the fate of George III – who on many levels was a visionary and accomplished monarch – to go down in history as a comic figure, most famed for losing first America and then his mind. Read more... |
Reasons To Be Cheerful, Graeae review - raunchy working-class nostalgiaWednesday, 10 June 2020
If any musical can live up to this title in these troubled times, it must be this show from Graeae, a theatre company whose mission is to champion the work of Deaf and disabled artists. 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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