sun 22/12/2024

Theatre Reviews

Trojan Women / Thrown, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 reviews - passionate all-women productions

David Kettle

Trojan Women, Festival Theatre 

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Macbeth, Shakespeare's Globe review - uneven production of intermittent power

Gary Naylor

That Shakespeare speaks to his audiences anew with every production is a cliché, but, like so many such, the glib blandness of the assertion conceals an insistent truth. The Thane of Glamis has had some success in life, gains preferment from those who really should have seen through his shallowness and vaulting ambition – he even says the phrase himself – and achieves power without really knowing what to do with it.

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Edinburgh Fringe 2023 reviews: Groomed / Let the Bodies Pile

Veronica Lee

Groomed Pleasance Dome

“How can a truth be told? How can a secret be spoken?” Patrick Sandford asks in Groomed, his searingly honest account of his experience of abuse by a teacher at primary school several decade ago. Over 50 minutes he recounts his tale, weaving in other stories to illuminate his own.

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Edinburgh International Festival 2023 reviews: FOOD / Dusk

David Kettle

FOOD, The Studio 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2023 reviews: Heaven / Lie Low / After the Act

David Kettle

Heaven, Traverse Theatre 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2023 reviews: Stuntman / Beautiful Evil Things / What You See When Your Eyes Are Closed...

David Kettle

Stuntman, Summerhall 

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Edinburgh Fringe 2023 reviews: The Death and Life of All of Us / Anything That We Wanted To Be / Chicken

David Kettle

The Death and Life of All of Us, Summerhall 

Victor Esses was 16 when he first discovered his grandmother had a sister – someone the family had never discussed. It was just a year after his own first illicit visit to a gay sauna.

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The Crown Jewels, Garrick Theatre review - star laden comedy fails to sparkle

Gary Naylor

At first, it’s hard to believe that the true story of Colonel Blood’s audacious attempt to steal The Crown Jewels from the Tower of London in 1671 has not provided the basis for a play before. After two hours of Simon Nye’s pedestrian telling of the tale as a comedy, you have your answer.

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Annie Get Your Gun, Lavender Theatre review - new production in new venue has some work to do

Gary Naylor

A new theatre? In 2023? Now there’s a shot in the arm for the post-pandemic gloom. But there’s no business like show business – not for Mayfield Lavender anyway, who have found a corner of one of their beautiful purple fields and built an outdoor theatre for the poor, neglected souls of er… Epsom – but any investment in arts is surely welcome in these most philistine of times.

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Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors, National Theatre review - verbatim theatre delivered to wrenching effect

Helen Hawkins

The shadow of Grenfell Tower has already produced Nick Kent and Richard Norton-Taylor’s dispassionately forensic but devastating documentary plays based on transcripts from the Grenfell Inquiry. Now comes a companion piece, the National’s Grenfell, a verbatim play using excerpts from the same source, but larded by Gillian Slovo into a wider account of the fire by those who were in it, to equally wrenching effect.

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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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