Theatre Reviews
Picnic at Hanging Rock, Royal Lyceum Theatre, EdinburghThursday, 19 January 2017
We probably think we know the story. From Peter Weir’s cult 1975 film, or even from the original 1967 novel by Joan Lindsay. An excitable gaggle of Australian schoolgirls from an uptight, English-run boarding school take a trip to sinister volcanic Hanging Rock, where four vanish – three students, one teacher – leaving no clues as to what’s become of them. Read more...
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Wish List, Royal Court TheatreFriday, 13 January 2017
You could call it the Corbynisation of new writing. In the past couple of years, a series of plays have plumbed the lower depths, looking at the subject of good people trapped in zero-hour contracts and terrible working conditions. Like Ken Loach’s dreary film, I, Daniel Blake, these plays have integrity, but very little dramatic content. Market leaders of this new fashion are two plays devised under the direction of Alexander Zeldin, Beyond Caring and Love. Read more... |
The Kite Runner, Wyndhams TheatreWednesday, 11 January 2017
Khaled Hosseini's 2003 bestseller ticks all the boxes as an A-level text. A personal story with epic sweep, it interweaves the bloody recent history of Afghanistan with a gripping family saga. Read more... |
The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus, Finborough TheatreMonday, 09 January 2017
When a leading fringe theatre starts the year with a production whose gender ratio is 8:1 in favour of men, it had better have a good reason. When seven of those eight are wearing prosthetic penises, it had better have a very good reason. And a plan in place for a glut of women on its stage next season. Read more... |
Best of 2016: TheatreTuesday, 27 December 2016
Life threw numerous, possibly irrevocable curveballs at us all during 2016, which in turn made one even more aware of how lucky we were to find ourselves in the midst of so much sustenance by way of art. Read more... |
Christmas Book: When Broadway Went to HollywoodSaturday, 24 December 2016
Tinseltown's relationship to its more sophisticated, older New York brother is analogous to Ethan Mordden's engagement by Oxford University Press. The presentation is a sober, if slim, academic tome with an austere assemblage of black-and-white photos in the middle; what we get in the text is undoubtedly erudite but also racy, gossipy, anecdotal, list-inclined, sometimes camp and a tad hit and miss. Read more... |
Art, Old VicThursday, 22 December 2016
I avoided seeing Art when it was first staged in 1996, even though Matthew Warchus’ production created a huge buzz and won an Olivier Award for Comedy. (On receiving the award, Yasmina Reza joked that she thought she’d written a tragedy not a comedy.) Read more... |
Saint Joan, Donmar WarehouseTuesday, 20 December 2016
How’s this for a Christmas-week story? Joan, a young peasant girl – played in this version by the charismatically attractive Gemma Arterton – grows up in the bleak French countryside. She hears voices. It’s 1429, and they tell her to lift the siege of Orleans and defeat the English invaders. She inspires troops, she inspires the Dauphin. She helps crown him King of France. She is... Read more... |
Mary Stuart, Almeida TheatreMonday, 19 December 2016
Two rich, full December Saturdays of unsurpassable theatre, four great plays that grow more meaningful with passing time, above all supreme female teamwork to crown 2016. So Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams playing Schiller's Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart – yes, both roles at different performances – may not be part of an all-woman cast like Harriet Walter, first among equals in the stunning Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy. Read more... |
Love's Labour's Lost/Much Ado About Nothing, RSC, Theatre Royal HaymarketFriday, 16 December 2016
“The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.” A sudden cold breeze blows through the endless summer afternoon of Love’s Labour's Lost in the play’s final moments. Death enters Shakespeare’s Edenic garden and innocence is lost. But what, asks director Christopher Luscombe, might happen if those songs were to return? 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*
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