Theatre Reviews

The Love Girl and the Innocent, Southwark Playhouse

Tom Birchenough Wednesday, 16 October 2013

Southwark Playhouse's new production of The Love Girl and the Innocent is London’s first in over 30 years, and there’s a reason Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s play rarely reaches the stage: it’s a lumpy mammoth of a script, demanding a cast upwards of 50, with stage directions that would be monumental if interpreted literally.

Tonypandemonium, National Theatre Wales

Gary Raymond Tuesday, 15 October 2013

Henry James said, “Realism is what in some shape or form we might encounter, whereas Romanticism is something we will never encounter.” The 19th-century Realists believed that “ordinary people” were “fit to be endowed” with the greatness of imaginative writing.

The Events, Young Vic Theatre

aleks Sierz Tuesday, 15 October 2013

Is this the year’s most controversial play? When it opened at Edinburgh in August, David Greig’s The Events created a stir because its depiction of the aftermath of an atrocity is reminiscent of Norway’s Anders Breivik and the 2011 Utoya shootings. The more lurid commentators denounced this as exploitation theatre; concerned liberals shook their heads. But, with the play now visiting London, audiences have the chance of appreciating a much deeper work than the fuss suggested.

Adult Supervision, Park Theatre

Caroline Crampton Friday, 11 October 2013

It's often a sign of a good drama when, as it concludes, you find it hard to tell which character you dislike most. And so it is with Adult Supervision - all the way through, first-time playwright Sarah Rutherford skilfully manipulates your allegiances, causing your sympathies to shift and shift again until there is no one left to be redeemed.

The Light Princess, National Theatre

Kate Bassett Thursday, 10 October 2013

Once upon a time, there were two cultures, and they were at odds. A forested wilderness stretches between the kingdoms of Sealand and Lagobel, as we glean from the childishly-drawn, giant map that serves as a front cloth for the NT's new musical spectacular – directed by Marianne Elliot and opening in the Lyttelton last night. The map shows, on one side of the wilderness, Sealand’s coastal realm with winding rivers and a chateau bristling with turrets, all in shades of blue.

Comment

The Commitments, Palace Theatre

Kate Bassett Wednesday, 09 October 2013

The setting is Dublin. We're talking modern-day and down-at-heel in this major new musical which has a deliberately scruffy look – with a launderette glowing in the dark and a concrete, four-storey housing block hulking upstage. The adaptation is by Roddy Doyle himself, based on his 1987 comic novel.

Roots, Donmar Warehouse

aleks Sierz Wednesday, 09 October 2013

British theatre is obsessed with the new, with novelty. And one of the obvious casualties of this is old plays that are not by Ibsen or Chekhov. Plays that feature in every history of British theatre, such as Arnold Wesker’s 1959 classic, Roots, about the political and sentimental education of Beatie Bryant, with its uplifting final scene of her self-awakening. At last, this revival gives us all the chance to watch a legendary piece of our cultural history.

Blood + Chocolate, York Theatre Royal

Steve Clarkson Sunday, 06 October 2013

Never before has “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” been a more fitting opening gambit. This sprawling wartime spectacle knew few bounds as it marched across York’s cobbled streets for an evening that produced watery eyes, open mouths and, admittedly, tired legs.

Great Expectations, Bristol Old Vic

mark Kidel Saturday, 05 October 2013

Neil Bartlett, as he has demonstrated in his earlier Dickens adaptations of Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol, knows how to make gripping theatre out of a complex work of fiction. His Great Expectations rattles through the twists and turns of Pip’s coming of age with a pace that rarely lets up, so much so at times, that there is perhaps not enough space for reflection and the emotional complexity of Dickens’s mature doesn't fully come through.

Ghosts, Almeida Theatre

David Benedict Friday, 04 October 2013

In a moment of scalding intensity at the climax of Ghosts, terrified Oswald sees the sun. Throughout the rest of Ibsen’s celebrated drama about the sins of the past, light is fairly absent. Merely cataloguing the disasters that befall its heroine Mrs Alving would certainly indicate a play living up to Ibsen’s bad reputation as the leading dramatist of doom and gloom.

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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.