Donmar Warehouse
Henry V, Donmar Warehouse review - playing at warSaturday, 05 March 2022Sharp suits swapped for combat fatigues, a people’s commander: you’d think that Max Webster’s production of Shakespeare's surprisingly nuanced propaganda history-play would have special resonance in a week which has seen horrors and heroism... Read more... |
Force Majeure, Donmar Warehouse review - fissures in a marriageTuesday, 11 January 2022It sounds like the title of a play by Rattigan. No such luck: “Force Majeure” – a legal term with which all too few will be familiar, in which circumstances beyond anyone’s control cancel a contract – is how Ruben Östlund’s 2014 film Turist is known... Read more... |
Stephen Sondheim in memoriam - he gave us more to seeTuesday, 30 November 2021It seemed impossible and yet, the other evening, while idly flicking through emails, I learned the unimaginable: Stephen Sondheim, age 91, had passed away. And very quickly by all accounts, given that he was reported to have enjoyed a Thanksgiving... Read more... |
Love and Other Acts of Violence, Donmar Warehouse review - snappy and tightly intelligent but flawedTuesday, 19 October 2021This is simultaneously a love story and an archaeology of hate, a sparky, spiky encounter between two individuals whose chemistry proves as destructive as it is explosive.Love and Other Acts of Violence opens with a comedic encounter on a dance... Read more... |
'The din is loud these days': playwright Cordelia Lynn on her imminent premiere at the Donmar WarehouseMonday, 11 October 2021As I write this, we've just had our final day in the rehearsal room and are going into tech onstage next week with my new play, which is also reopening the Donmar not only to live performance but follows major renovations at their home address.It’s... Read more... |
Assembly, Donmar Warehouse online review - the future is coming, ready or notWednesday, 24 March 2021“Your task is to imagine the future.” That’s what the citizens of Assembly, a new streamed production performed and devised by the Donmar Warehouse’s Local Company, are told. It can be anything they like, so long as they make it together – which is... Read more... |
Best of 2020: TheatreSunday, 27 December 2020"Goodbye": The single word lingered heavily in the air last March 16, as the scripted closing both of the terrific Southwark Playhouse revival of The Last Five Years and as an ancillary farewell to live theatre. Late afternoon on that same day, in... Read more... |
Blindness, Donmar Warehouse review - a beautifully haunting parableMonday, 10 August 2020Wowee! Twenty weeks after the last time I set foot in a theatre, I was able to visit a venue once more. Hello again Donmar! It’s great to see you again. Not for a show featuring live performers, who are currently banned, but for a theatre experience... Read more... |
Theatre Unlocked 3: Signs of activity after a long siestaThursday, 06 August 2020After a weeklong hiatus due to an absence of noteworthy material, this column is back heralding the return, as well, of something resembling live theatre. Okay, so the Simon Stephens premiere Blindness at the Donmar doesn't actually feature actors... Read more... |
Theatre Lockdown Special 8: A film star plays tough, and several familiar titles are examined anewThursday, 04 June 2020As we continue into a third month in lockdown, the arts continue to suggest ever-changing worlds beyond. The invaluable National Theatre at Home this week looks across the Thames to a smaller venue's large-scale Coriolanus, starring a certain... Read more... |
Midnight Your Time, Donmar Warehouse online review – intimate and quietly movingThursday, 14 May 2020During lockdown, some of the best online theatre has been shows that are specially created for this digital format. Much better than dull records of dramas that might have worked well on stage, but now seem sadly moribund and exceedingly slow on the... Read more... |
Theatre Lockdown Special 4: Little-known Lloyd Webber, prize-winning Shakespeare, and starry David MametThursday, 07 May 2020Has anyone else noticed how fulltime this streaming thing has become? Those who were of a mind to (and who never slept) could find enough cultural output to satisfy 24/7, especially if one adds to the free offerings that crop up by the week... Read more... |