Theatre Reviews
Romeo and Juliet, Sherman Cymru, CardiffSunday, 12 October 2014
When unveiling her first season at Sherman Cymru earlier this year, new artistic director Rachel O’Riordan gave voice to two ambitions: to generate new writing within Wales, and produce classic texts which specifically resonate with the audience. What better way to begin than with Shakespeare’s famous tale of star-crossed lovers? Read more... |
Peer Gynt, Théâtre National de Nice, Barbican TheatreSaturday, 11 October 2014
Like Ibsen’s titanic character in search of a self, the Barbican’s theatre programme globetrots to find the richest and rarest. Yet it certainly doesn’t reach Peer Gynt's conclusion that home's best. Read more... |
The Distance, Orange Tree TheatreSaturday, 11 October 2014
Are there any real taboos left? I mean, there have been scores of plays about incest, about abuse and about paedophilia. Have all proverbial stones been turned over? According to Deborah Bruce, a director turned playwright, there is one situation that still troubles people, especially women: it is mothers who leave their children. Although this is a staple of women’s magazines, there have been few plays about the subject. Read more... |
Henry IV, Donmar WarehouseFriday, 10 October 2014
It’s hard to believe that almost two years have passed since Phyllida Lloyd’s Julius Caesar at the Donmar Warehouse. Harriet Walter’s stricken face as the play ended is still burningly fresh in the memory as we return to the theatre for Henry IV – Part II of a planned trilogy of all-female Shakespeare plays. Read more... |
Notes from Underground, Print RoomFriday, 10 October 2014
“I am spiteful! I am ill! You are not going to like this!” With these words Harry Lloyd opens his one-man show that adapts the Dostoevsky 1864 novella that is often hailed as the first work of literary existentialism. Lloyd is already on stage as the audience enter, darkly bearded, sitting in a dishevelled armchair on a floor created from stacked books beneath his bare feet, his haunted piercing eyes following viewers as they take their seats. Read more... |
Urinetown, Apollo TheatreWednesday, 08 October 2014
It's tempting with this show less to write a review per se than to simply pile on the puns, but that would be to piss on - sorry, I meant do a disservice to - both the musical that is Urinetown and to the exceptionally deft UK premiere that the Broadway sleeper hit from a dozen or more years ago is currently receiving at the hands of the director Jamie Lloyd. Read more... |
Warde Street, Park TheatreTuesday, 07 October 2014
The advantage of basing drama on real events, particularly emotive ones like the 2005 London bombings, is that they have inbuilt resonance; the disadvantage, all too apparent in 2013 play Warde Street, is that it can be challenging to articulate a revelatory view. Read more... |
Speed-the-Plow, Playhouse TheatreFriday, 03 October 2014
To do Mamet’s work justice, you must be able to deliver dialogue with the speed, skill and breathtaking bravura confidence of Usain Bolt. In Lindsay Posner’s much-hyped but frustratingly sluggish revival at the Playhouse Theatre, only one of three cast members rises to that challenge – and it’s the one who’s generated by far the fewest column inches. Read more... |
Rachel, Finborough TheatreThursday, 02 October 2014
As a political act, the first performance of Angelina Weld Grimké’s Rachel in 1916 is exceptionally important. It was staged in Washington DC by the drama committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and was the first play by an African-American woman ever to be professionally produced (as well as one of the first to feature an all-black cast). Read more... |
Electra, Old VicThursday, 02 October 2014
As revered as the Greek tragedies may be, I have to admit to feeling a little weary of all that conspicuous, over-ripe angst, and the expectation of our sympathy, even empathy for matricides, patricides, filicides and all such. Rather than resonate through time, they’ve brought me to the point where I’m feeling “enough already”. 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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