Theatre Reviews
Lulu, Gate TheatreThursday, 17 June 2010![]()
What kind of play is Frank Wedekind's Lulu? The answer is a very odd one, with a fractured writing history. Wedekind subtitled his original five-act exploration of raw femininity, in 1894, "A Monster Tragedy", then divided it into two: Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box. Read more... |
Through a Glass Darkly, Almeida TheatreThursday, 17 June 2010![]()
Perhaps it's because the Almeida had a major hit with Festen (well, everywhere but Broadway) that the Scandinavian back catalogue of movies seems every bit as ripe for plunder as is mainstream Hollywood when it comes to feeding musicals on Broadway and the West End. Read more... |
Like a Fishbone, Bush TheatreMonday, 14 June 2010![]() One of the many absent friends in contemporary British drama is the play that tackles questions of religious belief. At a time when more and more people take their faith more and more seriously, this lacuna at the heart — or should that be soul? — of new work is surely regrettable. But perhaps the tide is now turning: in May, Drew Pautz’s Love the Sinner at the National examined belief and sexuality; now Australian playwright Anthony Weigh, whose new play opened last night, wrestles... Read more... |
The Fantasticks, Duchess TheatreThursday, 10 June 2010![]()
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the musical theatre (Paradise Found, anyone?), along comes The Fantasticks, and we are returned to square one. Read more... |
After the Dance, National TheatreWednesday, 09 June 2010![]()
A pall of ennui hangs over the 1930s drawing room of the National’s latest Rattigan revival, as deadly as the boredom its burnt-out party people all dread. Read more... |
The Crucible, Regent's Park Open Air TheatreFriday, 04 June 2010![]()
Usually a seasonal home for the pastel-coloured delights of drawing-room farce, musical comedy and the odd Shakespeare pastoral, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is this year offering a programme of rather darker hue. Read more... |
The Late Middle Classes, Donmar WarehouseWednesday, 02 June 2010![]() The late Simon Gray, who died in 2008, lived a ragged, bruised and battering life. I usually think of him as the John Prescott of playwrights, except that he was miles more articulate, and eventually rewarded by a CBE rather than a peerage. Anyway, he was pugnacious and out of step with playwriting trends. In an age of lefty state-of-the-nation dramas, Gray explored the emotions of upper-middle-class characters and their difficulties with communication. Although he could be irascible, and his... Read more... |
All My Sons, Apollo TheatreThursday, 27 May 2010![]()
A young Arthur Miller wrote this highly moralistic, redemption-seeking play soon after the Second World War, a parable about an older generation’s dubious pragmatic principles versus the bewildered idealism of their children who were Miller’s generation, the soldiers’ generation. Read more... |
Paradise Found, Menier Chocolate FactoryThursday, 27 May 2010![]()
There's bizarre, and then there's Paradise Found, a new musical that falls so short of the not always clearly defined mark that audiences may likely be mulling over what went wrong for years. What do the two acts have to do with one another? What in heaven's name is the point? How much weight in water is leading man Mandy Patinkin losing per performance? Read more... |
Ingredient X, Royal Court TheatreWednesday, 26 May 2010
Nick Grosso is a good example of the “now you see him, now you don’t” playwright. In the mid-1990s, he was feted as a lads’ writer for his funny plays about masculinity, such as Peaches, Sweetheart and Real Classy Affair. Then he dropped out of view. He resurfaced briefly in 2002 with the deliciously surrealistic Kosher Harry. Then nothing. Until now. Read more... |
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.
latest in today

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...

“They fuck you up your Mum and Dad; they may not mean to, but they do.” These lines from Philip Larkin’s 1975 poem, “This Be the Verse”, sum up...

It’s easy to see metaphors about the status of modern Georgia, once again threatened by the Russian boot, in its recent artistic output...

It doesn't take much to get lost in a film by Miguel Gomes. In fact, it's required. Multiple layers, timelines, and perspectives unfold in his...

There’s always been a goofy charm about Billy Idol. As an implausibly chiselled Adonis shining out from the deliberate ugliness of the original...

Greg Davies doesn’t spare himself in his new show, Full Fat Legend, his first tour in seven years after having been busy being...

In a programme note for the St John Passion at the Barbican, the Academy of Ancient Music’s chief executive called their Easter performances of...

Sweden’s most gloriously unhinged export is back, and Viagr Aboys might just be Viagra Boys at their most fun, feral and fully realised....

It would have been hard to pick up a copy of the album credited to and titled 1001 Est Crémazie in...

Never make your mind up too soon about any large-scale work by a genius. Back in 2010, I had my doubts about James MacMillan’s first Passion,...