Theatre Reviews
Jezebel, Soho TheatreFriday, 15 August 2014
If comedy is tragedy plus time, either too much has elapsed since the fictional events of Jezebel, or not quite enough. Newcomer Mark Cantan's uneven screwball comedy pitting a methodical couple against a scatter-brained opposite with wacky misunderstandings aplenty, lacks the emotional heft to be more than genially inconsequential. And it's too enamoured of the old-fashioned TV sitcoms it references to subvert rather than merely replicate their well-worn tropes. Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2014: Cuckooed/ The Carousel/ Julie Burchill: Absolute Cult/ So It GoesThursday, 14 August 2014
Cuckooed, Traverse Theatre *****Mark Thomas's new show is in the theatre section of the Fringe brochure, but this hour, full of laughs and witty lines as it is, could easily be under the heading of comedy. Indeed, Thomas once made his living as a stand-up, even if his career has long defied any pigeonholing; professional irritant, activist and satirist are just a few job titles that could apply. Read more... |
The James Plays, Edinburgh Festival TheatreTuesday, 12 August 2014
Rona Munro's history cycle may take some liberties with the facts, as the writer admits in the programme notes, but its broad narrative sweep has been talked about as a state-of-the-Scottish-nation trilogy. It's the first joint production of the National Theatre of Scotland and the National Theatre and the timing of its premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival couldn't be more pertinent – just a few weeks before Scotland votes on 18 September in the independence referendum. Read more... |
Lady Windermere's Fan, King's Head TheatreMonday, 11 August 2014
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars,” declares Lord Darlington in Act II of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan. He’s the classic Wildean cad - unprincipled, facetiously witty and in this production, possessed of the vilest pencil moustache, and yet the playwright gives him the most memorable line of the whole play. Why? To demonstrate that nobody is too completely good or bad not to be redeemed by beauty. Read more... |
Sommer 14 - A Dance of Death, Finborough TheatreSaturday, 09 August 2014
For those who have spent the past few months nodding along to World War I conversations while desperately trying to remember who killed that archduke and why, Rolf Hochhuth has kindly supplied a solution in the form of a dramatised European history lesson, making its English-language premiere at the Finborough. Read more... |
Ursula Martinez: My Stories, Your Emails, Purcell RoomWednesday, 06 August 2014
In her book How To Be a Woman, Times columnist Caitlin Moran explains the difference between strip clubs and burlesque shows, and why the latter are perfectly acceptable to feminism. Read more... |
My Night with Reg, Donmar WarehouseWednesday, 06 August 2014
Daniel loves Reg; so does John. Guy loves John; John doesn’t love Guy. Bernie loves Benny, and drives him mad. And as for Eric, he once thought he could fall for Reg – but they only shared one night together, and he never even knew Reg’s name. And anyway, as he points out, unlike the middle-aged others, he’s young – “I’ve got plenty of time.” Read more... |
Prom 21: Kiss Me, Kate, John Wilson OrchestraSunday, 03 August 2014
“Another Op'nin', Another Show”. The first musical number of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate sets the scene for a group of actors and hoofers to brush up their Shakespeare, cross their fingers and hold on to their hearts, and to hope that not too much goes wrong with their show in late 1940s Baltimore. Read more... |
A Streetcar Named Desire, Young VicTuesday, 29 July 2014
The latest production of Tennessee Williams’s sultry, brutal yet poetic masterpiece is mainstream theatre that dares to go out on a limb. Directed by Benedict Andrews, it may occasionally miss a beat, but its risk-taking comes with an innate sense of the play’s scorching pathos and an unnerving, dare one say exhilarating taste for the jugular that matches that of its primal male. Read more... |
Porgy and Bess, Regent's Park Open Air TheatreTuesday, 29 July 2014
It should work as pure musical theatre. Yet what precisely is Gershwin’s - or rather “The Gershwins’”, as this title frames it, though Ira wasn’t quite Gilbert or Brecht - Porgy and Bess? An opera? Trevor Nunn made the three-hour-plus score, much cut here, dazzle at Glyndebourne and Covent Garden. 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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