Theatre Reviews
Tree, Old VicMonday, 12 January 2015
There is a tree on stage. Not a real tree but a full-size fake one (made by Take 1 Scenic Services) that reaches the ceiling, with lots of branches and leaves. As the audience enters the Old Vic auditorium for this in-the-round production (first seen at Manchester Royal Exchange in 2013) they have to cross the stage, where performers Daniel Kitson and Tim Key are laying tape into various shapes on the floor, an act that will be explained much later in the evening. Read more... |
Donkey Heart, Trafalgar StudiosFriday, 09 January 2015
Can a country like Russia escape its history? In Moses Raine’s new play — transferring to the West End from the tiny Old Red Lion pub theatre where it was first seen in May 2014 — the answer seems to be no. Like Tena Stivicic’s 3 Winters at the National, the drama tells the story of a nation through the close study of three generations under one roof, in this case a small flat in contemporary Moscow. Read more... |
The Grand Tour, Finborough TheatreThursday, 08 January 2015
Everything about this little-known and largely forgotten show suggests epic, starting with the title: multiple locations, ambitious concept, big ideas. But like so much of Jerry Herman's work - and the received wisdom on it is invariably wide of the mark - The Grand Tour is a chamber piece at heart. Read more... |
Timber, Brighton DomeSunday, 04 January 2015
Timber! would be best described as a folk-themed lumberjack circus show. Its creators, Cirque Alfonse, hail from rural Quebec, but often, as they indulge in jigs and reels, banjo and mandolin, amongst acrobatics and action, their antics recall the more familiar backwoods traditions of the Appalachians, their hillbilly US counterparts. However, the afternoon matinee where I caught the show was filled with families, lots of kids coming to the end of their Christmas break. Read more... |
Jack and the Beanstalk, Birmingham HippodromeWednesday, 31 December 2014
Birmingham Hippodrome claims to stage the UK's biggest pantomime – a proud boast that highlights its productions' West End-level of investment. And this year's venture, Jack and the Beanstalk, is certainly glitzy and star-laden, while the sets and costumes are fabulous, and there's a 3D sequence as well as a live band, so the claim seems a fair one. Read more... |
Best of 2014: TheatreMonday, 29 December 2014
That old canard about there being no good roles for women needed revising time and again in the theatre year just gone, so much so that end-of-year judging panels for the year's best faced far more competition among the female contenders than they did among the men (such supreme all-male ensembles as the My Night with Reg team notwithstanding). Read more... |
Widowers' Houses, Orange Tree TheatreSaturday, 20 December 2014
When the Orange Tree lost all its Arts Council funding earlier this year it was hard to get too outraged. An institution that has made a niche in giving the good folk of Richmond exactly the kind of wig-and-britches, RP theatre that they like is hardly an urgent cause. But this is a new era for the Orange Tree in many ways, not least the arrival of new artistic director Paul Miller. Read more... |
Eric and Little Ern, St James TheatreFriday, 19 December 2014
The audience for this show could probably be divided into to two camps: those who fondly remember watching Morecambe & Wise on ITV or the BBC, and those who weren't even born when Eric Morecambe died in 1984. The latter group may know the double act from repeats, of course (which remind us of how great they were and how many of their successors pale by comparison), but if they are new to Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, then Jonty Stephens and Ian Ashpitel's show is a good entry point. Read more... |
City of Angels, Donmar WarehouseThursday, 18 December 2014
Drop-dead dames, a hard-bitten gumshoe, an ambitious writer and a sleazy movie mogul: this slick, sassy 1989 musical by Cy Coleman, David Zippel and Larry Gelbart serves up two parallel tales of Forties Tinseltown – and both of them are swell. Directing her first musical, Josie Rourke tackles this dazzling collision of noir thriller fantasy and garish Hollywood machinations with seductive brio. Read more... |
Almost, Maine, Park TheatreThursday, 18 December 2014
For a Christmas-weary Brit who's already had it up to here with commercial bonhomie and festive schmaltz, there were going to be barriers to overcome. Here is an avowedly sweet American play – actually nine playlets – on the subject of love, set in snowy Maine, in a small town "that doesn't quite exist". In John Cariani's two-handers, lovers most often – although not quite always – overcomes disappointment, misunderstandings or awkwardness to reach mini-happy endings. 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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