Theatre Reviews
Yerma, Young VicSaturday, 06 August 2016
Billie Piper vaults to the top rank of British theatre actresses with Yerma, Australian writer-director Simon Stone's rabidly free rewrite of Lorca's 1934 play that posits its young star as the sort of take-no-prisoners talent whose gifts come not from drama school but from something gloriously unfettered and astonishingly free. Read more...
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Young Chekhov, National TheatreThursday, 04 August 2016
"Yes, from life," Nikolai Ivanov (Geoffrey Streatfeild) says in passing of a painting midway through the early Chekhov play that bears his name. But the phrase could serve as the abiding achievement of the largely thrilling triptych of plays that has transferred from Chichester to the National under the banner title Young Chekhov. Read more... |
Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Theatre Royal HaymarketFriday, 29 July 2016
Think of Holly Golightly, and it’s more than likely that the face you’re picturing is Audrey Hepburn’s. And, while this adaptation by Richard Greenberg of Breakfast at Tiffany's is much closer to Truman Capote’s novella, it doesn’t have an ounce of the appeal of Blake Edwards’ famous film. Read more... |
Rotterdam, Trafalgar StudiosFriday, 29 July 2016
How many genders are there? The simplistic answer is two, but if you really think that then it’s time to go to the back of the class. In recent years, the rapid growth in perception of the fluidity of gender identity has meant that although there has been an increase in transgender stories in the news, culture has lagged a bit behind. Now every art form wants its own Danish Girl. Read more... |
The Plough and the Stars, National TheatreThursday, 28 July 2016
Anniversaries are lotteries. Sometimes they allow us to see the past with fresh eyes; at other times, they simply accentuate the growing distance between then and now. Because this year marks the centenary of the Easter Rising of 1916, the National has decided to revive Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars, whose last two acts are set during the ill-fated uprising against British colonial rule. Read more... |
Half A Sixpence, Chichester Festival TheatreWednesday, 27 July 2016
Watching Cameron Mackintosh’s joyful revision of this Sixties musical, it’s possible to believe for a moment that all the world needs now is love sweet love and a shit-ton of banjos. With a new book by Downton Abbey behemoth Julian Fellowes, new numbers by the pair behind hit musical Mary Poppins, and design that delights at every turn of the multi-revolve, Half A Sixpence seems destined to follow a flush of previous Chichester Festival musicals into the West End... Read more... |
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Palace TheatreTuesday, 26 July 2016
Harry Potter lives to see another day. The Hogwarts wizard has made his stage debut in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a two-part play that pushes JK Rowling’s world-beating franchise beyond the realm of fiction and film to embrace live action: the bespectacled boy has become an angsty grown-up, and London theatre is much the richer for it. Read more... |
Jesus Christ Superstar, Regent's Park Open Air TheatreFriday, 22 July 2016
London’s West End may be the envy of the world, but when it comes to musicals the big-hitting theatres might have to up their game a bit if they’re to keep up with the city’s rival offerings. Read more... |
Some Girl(s), Park TheatreWednesday, 20 July 2016
Neil LaBute’s exercise in self-flagellation, first seen in 2005 and adapted for film in 2013, offers his familiar misanthropic take on the battle of the sexes. This one concerns Guy (Charles Dorfman), engaged to be married and embarking on a tour of ex-girlfriends across America – ostensibly to right wrongs, but murkier motives soon emerge. Read more... |
Into the Woods, Menier Chocolate FactoryThursday, 14 July 2016
"Children will listen," or so goes a lyric to one of the most heart-rending numbers in Into the Woods, the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical that seems rarely to be long-absent from the British stage. And the great virtue of the Fiasco Theatre's approach to this of all Sondheim shows is that the company's childlike sense of play releases the abiding seriousness, even sorrow, of the piece afresh. Read more... |
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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.
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