Theatre Reviews
I and You, Hampstead Theatre review - Young Adult drama packs emotional punchTuesday, 30 October 2018
Here's a good pub quiz question: after Shakespeare, who was the most performed playwright in America last year? Arthur Miller? Tennessee Williams? David Mamet? None of those. Read more... |
The Wild Duck, Almeida Theatre review - meta, merciless and altogether brilliantThursday, 25 October 2018
Beware the smile that Edward Hogg wears like a shield in the opening scenes of The Wild Duck, the Ibsen play refashioned into the most scalding production in many a year by Robert Icke, here in career-surpassing form. Playing James Ekdal, the photographer previously known as Hjalmar, Hogg disarms you from the outset with a bonhomie just waiting to snap. Read more... |
A Very Very Very Dark Matter, Bridge Theatre review - black comedy falls flatThursday, 25 October 2018
It's all in the title, isn't it? Martin McDonagh's surreal new play comes with a warning that not only screams its intentions, but echoes them through repetition. Okay, okay, I get it. This is going to be a dark story, a very very very dark story. Read more... |
Macbeth, RSC, Barbican review - Shakespeare's blood-boltered tragedy, tense but flawedWednesday, 24 October 2018
It has been said before: Macbeth's reputation for bad luck has more to do with the difficulty of bringing off a successful production than the supernatural elements in the play. Read more... |
Wise Children, Old Vic review - Emma Rice in fun if not quite top-flight formSaturday, 20 October 2018
"What could possibly go wrong?" The question ends the first act of Wise Children, the debut venture from the new company birthed by a director, Emma Rice, who must have asked herself precisely that query at many points in recent years. Read more... |
A Guide For The Homesick, Trafalgar Studios review - warmly funny and deeply movingFriday, 19 October 2018
This blisteringly intense evening at Trafalgar Studios begins with two strangers in an Amsterdam hotel bedroom and – through a series of personal revelations – ends up spanning continents. Read more... |
Company, Gielgud Theatre review - here's to a sensational musical rebirthThursday, 18 October 2018
The most thrilling revivals interrogate a classic work, while revealing its fundamental soul anew. Marianne Elliott’s female-led, 21st-century take on George Furth and Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical comedy Company makes a bold, inventive statement, but somehow also suggests t Read more... |
Stories, National Theatre review - comic conception capersThursday, 18 October 2018
In 2017, playwright Nina Raine's Consent, an excellent National Theatre play about lawyers and rape victims, was hugely successful, winning a West End transfer, as well as generating a lot of... Read more... |
Measure for Measure, Donmar Warehouse review - Shakespeare twice-over packs a partial stingTuesday, 16 October 2018
Shakespeare exists to be refracted and filtered through the age in which he is presented. Read more... |
The Inheritance, Noël Coward Theatre review - tangled knot of gay fairy-tale and realityMonday, 15 October 2018
Its roots are in an emotional truth: Matthew Lopez saw the film, then read the book, of Howards End when he was 15 and 11 years later came across Maurice. He joined the dots between an apparent period-piece offering timeless wisdom about the human condition and the gayness he found he had in common with EM Forster. Read more... |
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