fri 29/03/2024

Theatre Reviews

Anjin: The Shogun and the English Samurai, Sadler's Wells

Laura Silverman

There is never a dull moment in this three-hour historical epic, even if it is not always clear what is going on. Directed by Gregory Doran, of the RSC, Anjin follows the 17th-century story of William Adams, the first Englishman to land in Japan.

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Quartermaine's Terms, Wyndham's Theatre

Veronica Lee

A wise man once said of Simon Gray's plays - and he wrote a lot of them - that they often have a lot of talk and very little action. And so it is with his 1981 tragi-comedy, set in the staff room of a language school for foreign students in Cambridge.

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Port, National Theatre

aleks Sierz

Over the past decade or so, Simon Stephens has emerged as one of Britain’s premier playwrights. As well as being a prolific penman, with three volumes of collected plays already in print, he has been tutor on the Royal Court’s Young Writers course and a regular at the National Theatre. He has also enjoyed collaborating with the best directors, one of whom is Marianne Elliott — their version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time transfers to the West End next month.

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Gruesome Playground Injuries, Gate Theatre

Laura Silverman

Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo put him in the running for a Pulitzer in 2010. Deservedly so. Set during the Iraq war and featuring a talking tiger (played with verve on Broadway by Robin Williams), it was inventive, funny and profound. Gruesome Playground Injuries is none of these.

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Mare Rider, Arcola Theatre

Carole Woddis

It’s like waiting for a number 19 bus. You hang around for half an hour then two come along at once. So it is just now with plays either written by women or featuring women’s lives. While Amelia Bullimore’s sparky three-hander Di and Viv and Rose is storming audiences in Hampstead, Mehmet Ergen, the dynamic Turkish-born founder of both Southwark Playhouse and the Arcola, is continuing to make waves in unfashionable Hackney and Dalston.

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The Turn of the Screw, Almeida Theatre

Fisun Güner

There are quite a few laughs in this new adaptation of The Turn of the Screw, Henry James’s chilling and ambiguous novella, written in 1897 after he was told a tale of children possessed by their deceased household servants. As a result I found this production thoroughly entertaining, while appreciating that not all the laughs were intentional.

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Di and Viv and Rose, Hampstead Theatre

aleks Sierz

When feminism was really cool, female playwrights would write flatshare dramas about a group of women, each of whom was representative of a certain way of life. The play title would just be a list of their names. The classic example is Pam Gems’s Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi from 1976. Does this mean that Amelia Bullmore’s new play, which also has a title listing its female characters, is a trip down nostalgia lane?

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The Accrington Pals, Royal Exchange, Manchester

philip Radcliffe

On 1 July 1916, the battalion of Lancashire volunteers recruited from Accrington was all but wiped out in about 20 minutes as they took on the task of attacking the village of Serre on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme. Out of 700 men, 235 were killed, 350 wounded, “mown down like meadow grass”. Such was the fate of the Accrington Pals, formally the 11th (Service) Battalion (Accrington) of the East Lancashire Regiment.

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Metamorphosis, Lyric Hammersmith

Heather Neill

While Kafka specifically declined to indicate exactly what kind of creature Gregor Samsa becomes in his horrific overnight transformation, translators of the novella have gone for a variety of options: bug, beetle, cockroach or vermin.

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The Judas Kiss, Duke of York's Theatre

Veronica Lee

David Hare's 1998 play wasn't terribly well received when it was first produced by the Almeida; several critics regarded it as a thin work, weakly directed by Richard Eyre, and opined that Liam Neeson was miscast in the role of Oscar Wilde.

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Pages

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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