Theatre Reviews
Trout Stanley, Southwark PlayhouseSunday, 24 November 2013
Award-winning Toronto-born playwright Claudia Dey is also an advice columnist and here she presents us with three wildly off-the-wall case studies. The twin Ducharme sisters, who share an isolated house in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, are famous for having a shared life marked by tragedy: their triplet died in the birth canal, their mother succumbed to a fever on their twentieth birthday and their father was split in two by lightning on the same day. Read more... |
Lizzie Siddal, Arcola TheatreSaturday, 23 November 2013
Lizzie Siddal, Pre-Raphaelite muse and model for John Everett Millais’ 1852 sensation Ophelia, died a tragic death aged 32 from a laudanum overdose, the Victorian’s opiate of choice to which she had become addicted in her final years. Jeremy Green’s new play explores her relationship with Gabriel Dante Rossetti, who, with Millais and William Holman Hunt, formed the original PRB triumvirate. Read more... |
In the Next Room, St James TheatreFriday, 22 November 2013
Is there a danger that a show can be oversold? Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room sounds innocuous enough — until you read its subtitle: The Vibrator Play. Marketed as the most provocative drama of the year, its theme is female sexuality in the Victorian era, and yes, it’s all about the discovery of the joys of orgasm. Read more... |
Strangers on a Train, Gielgud TheatreWednesday, 20 November 2013
Whether you’re partial to Highsmith or Hitchcock, or both, there’s something deliciously exciting about the prospect of Strangers on a Train. Much of that anticipation lies in the intriguing question of which side of the material this adaptation will fall – with book or film, two very different animals – and curiosity as to the staging. "Hitch" has rather spoiled us for visuals. Or has he? Read more... |
Eat Pray Laugh!: Barry Humphries' Farewell Tour, London PalladiumSaturday, 16 November 2013
Now here’s a funny thing, possums. Back in 1990 when one great Australian Dame, Joan Sutherland, gave her farewell performance, another, a certain housewife superstar from the Melbourne suburb of Moonee Ponds, seemed closer to retirement age. Read more... |
Mojo, Harold Pinter TheatreThursday, 14 November 2013
I first saw Mojo as a film, adapted from the stage and directed by its writer Jez Butterworth in 1997. And it really didn’t work. Set in 1950s Soho and involving club owners, gangsters and a wannabe rock & roll star, it tried too hard, felt flashy and stilted; the period proved a graveyard in much the same way as it did for Absolute Beginners a decade before. Read more... |
The Island, Young Vic TheatreWednesday, 13 November 2013
This near-legendary short play, devised by Athol Fugard with the actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona (who gave their names to its characters), was first shown in Cape Town in 1973, during the apartheid era. Its effect then must have been electric, and some of that visceral intensity still shone out in one of the pair's last performances of the piece at the Old Vic in 2002. Read more... |
Jeeves and Wooster: Perfect Nonsense, Duke of York's TheatreWednesday, 13 November 2013
In several of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories, reference is made to something called "a knockabout cross-talk act". It's a two-handed sketch, usually performed at a village hall smoking concert or similar, in which the protagonists put on fake beards and terrible Irish accents to become "Pat" and "Mike". They then proceed to trade nonsensical insults and bust each other "over the bean" with umbrellas. Read more... |
The Dead Wait, Park TheatreSaturday, 09 November 2013
A single movement is all it takes. A wounded man is held at gunpoint, and instead of cringing away from the inevitable bullet, he lifts his head and looks his would-be executioner in eye. This simple gesture does not just save his life – it sets in motion a drama that will ultimately consume the lives of everyone caught up in it. Read more... |
Sweeney Todd, Royal Exchange, ManchesterWednesday, 06 November 2013
How many times can a director re-work the same show and still come up with something fresh, gripping and memorable? This is James Brining’s third version of Sondheim’s killer thriller musical Sweeney Todd. He produced an award-winning version in 2010 at Dundee Rep. He turned to it again last month for his first production since becoming artistic director at West Yorkshire Playhouse. 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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