Theatre Reviews

Ingredient X, Royal Court Theatre

aleks Sierz Wednesday, 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.

Henry VIII, Shakespeare's Globe

Matt Wolf Wednesday, 26 May 2010

A history play with heft: Dominic Rowan as Henry VIII

After Wolf Hall and The Tudors, Shakespeare's Globe is arriving rather late at this particular historical party, especially given that the Bankside venue brings with it a closer connection to the period than most. Can this theatre animate a rarely performed Shakespeare play - well, make that Shakespeare and John Fletcher, in accordance with...

Canary, Hampstead Theatre

aleks Sierz Monday, 24 May 2010

The cast of 'Canary': Harvey creates a kaleidoscope of history by filling the air with a mix of funny one-liners and wry observation

One of the least lamented (by me at least) genres that has fallen foul of social changes in the past two decades is the 1980s gay drama. You know the kind of thing: right-on coming-out speeches, painful but ridiculous instances of homophobia, and the compulsory dying-of-AIDS scene. The irony is that Jonathan Harvey, whose 1993 classic Beautiful Thing did so much to pull the gay play out of its ghetto, has now returned to this 1980s genre. His latest play, which opened last night and...

I Am a Warehouse, Newhaven Fort, Brighton Festival Fringe

David Nice Saturday, 22 May 2010

Anna-Maria Nabirye taking on the role of the bombed Gaza warehouse

Just say "Gaza" and it's like throwing a bombshell marked "Darwin" in among the Creationists. Only in this case it's not always clear who the antagonists might be. Several seemingly liberal theatre venues in Israel, where this project originated as a clear statement of the UN Relief and Works Agency's humanitarian role, cancelled at the last minute; more recently, supposedly enlightened sponsors suddenly withdrew substantial support. None had seen or read the content. It seems that telling the...

Ditch, Old Vic Tunnels

aleks Sierz Wednesday, 19 May 2010

Gethin Anthony as James: the new arrival is soon introduced to the horrors of war

Dystopia is a genre that works like a rhetorical device. Take a government policy — let’s say the war in Afghanistan — then list the bad effects that this has had on the British people, exaggerate by a factor of ten, or more, add some obscure but sinister language, extrapolate by throwing in some nightmarish horrors, and then wrap it all up for a small cast. If you’re lucky, as Beth Steel has been with her debut play which opened last night at the Old Vic Tunnels, you’ll get a really...

Peter Pan, Barbican Theatre

alexandra Coghlan Friday, 14 May 2010

“All over the world children are safe – but not here, not on my ship.” Despite its wild pack of homeless children, a flesh-eating crocodile and some of the most gut-punching depictions of parental grief in all literature, J M Barrie’s Peter Pan has somehow been consigned to the theatrical remainders bin, its old-fashioned sentimentality acceptable really only at Christmas, or in pantomime form.

Comment

A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky, Lyric Hammersmith

aleks Sierz Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Ann Mitchell, Nigel Cooke and Harry McEntire: ‘Much of the dialogue is obstinately ordinary, with a deliberately insistent quotidien feel’

During the past week, as the first coalition government for 70 years has been formed in the UK, we were frequently warned that failure to find a solution might be the end of the world. It’s a solid, if usually over-used, metaphor. But what would happen if we really did face the end of life on Earth? You know, the real thing: a total catastrophe — the implosion of the universe — which we could predict, but not prevent? That is the premise of this unusual new play, a joint effort by playwrights...

Love the Sinner, National Theatre

aleks Sierz Tuesday, 11 May 2010

Religion, and a sense of the revival of belief, is such an important part of everyday life in the wider population that it is one of the stranger facts about contemporary theatre that so few plays tackle this subject. In fact, the last new British play to do this at the National was David Hare’s Racing Demon in 1990. Now, 20 years later, the same Cottesloe theatre space bears witness to a new play, which opened last night, about the same subject.

Eurydice, Young Vic Theatre

Sam Marlowe Tuesday, 11 May 2010

Love's young dream: Ony Uhiara and Osi Okerafor

Since Eurydice was the ill-fated wife of Orpheus, master musician, it’s not inappropriate that this reworking of the classical myth by the award-winning US writer Sarah Ruhl should be so much like a song. Her language has a kind of blunt lyricism, and the action of her drama, with its recurrent waves of water imagery, has a vivid, surreal fluidity that eddies and flows like an elusive melody. Sometimes the playfulness is beguiling; sometimes it merely seems arch. And in Bijan Sheibani’s stark...

Debbie Reynolds - Alive and Fabulous, Apollo Theatre

David Nice Thursday, 29 April 2010

Let me confess immediately: Debbie Reynolds didn't mean a great deal to me beyond Singin' in the Rain, warbling "Tammy" and Being Princess Leia's Mother (and believe me, she gets plenty of comic mileage out of the Carrie Fisher connection). But I knew she had a fabulous Hollywood history, and having been smitten by old troupers Elaine Stritch and Barbara Cook in London, I wondered if she could match them.

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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.