Hampstead Theatre
Rona Munro on writing Little EaglesWednesday, 13 April 2011![]() My latest play, Little Eagles, marks the 50th anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s first orbit around the Earth. Gagarin’s place in history is, quite rightly, assured but little is known about Sergei Korolyov, a brilliant engineer and the chief... Read more... |
Ecstasy, Hampstead TheatreTuesday, 15 March 2011![]() Film-maker and playwright Mike Leigh simply doesn’t do revivals. His method of working - which involves a group of actors improvising characters and situations until a story emerges - runs contrary to any notion of returning to a play after its... Read more... |
Tiger Country, Hampstead TheatreWednesday, 19 January 2011![]() Playwright Nina Raine has a gift for evocative play titles. Her 2006 debut was called Rabbit, and her sellout success at the Royal Court last year was Tribes. This time, we seem to be on safari with Tiger Country, but appearances can be deceptive.... Read more... |
Royal Shakespeare Company, 2011 SeasonSaturday, 08 January 2011![]() The Royal Shakespeare Company celebrates its 50th birthday season with the grand reopening of its transformed Royal Shakespeare Theatre at a cost of £112.8 million. The temporary Courtyard Theatre folds curtains on the sold-out smash hit that is... Read more... |
Beasts and Beauties, Hampstead TheatreWednesday, 15 December 2010![]() Once upon a time there was a free spirit called Tim, who fell in love with olde folk tales and created little shows all about spells and wonders, and peopled them with princes and princesses, farmers and animals. When he was more grown up, he formed... Read more... |
The Train Driver, Hampstead TheatreTuesday, 09 November 2010![]() Few playwrights have been so successful at moulding our view of a nation as Athol Fugard. It’s impossible to think of South Africa, especially during the apartheid years, without thinking of his Sizwe Bansi is Dead, The Island or Statements after an... Read more... |
Salome, Hampstead TheatreThursday, 24 June 2010![]() The last time I saw Oscar Wilde’s biblical tale it was performed by dancer Lindsay Kemp at the Roundhouse in London, back in the 1970s, in a production that was high on dope, incense, strange vocal drawling - and which transported you very quickly... Read more... |
The Gods Weep, RSC/Hampstead TheatreThursday, 18 March 2010![]() Why is it that Method-ist actors are pretty much expected to spend months manically researching the inner minutiae of their character, but a much-lauded playwright can get away without providing any serious insights into his main subject matter?To... Read more... |
Dunsinane, RSC/Hampstead TheatreThursday, 18 February 2010![]() Scottish playwright David Greig’s new play, for the Royal Shakespeare Company in their London season at Hampstead, picks up where Shakespeare’s Macbeth left off (almost). We are in 11th-century Dunsinane, the seat of power in Scotland. Macbeth (... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Playwright David GreigSaturday, 06 February 2010![]() A new play by David Greig opens at the Hampstead Theatre for the Royal Shakespeare Company next week. A theatre director as well as playwright, Greig (b. 1969) is one of the most prolific and artistically ambitious playwrights of his generation and... Read more... |
Edward Hall, new artistic director of Hampstead TheatreWednesday, 13 January 2010![]() Hampstead Theatre today revealed the identity of their new artistic director. Edward Hall will take over at the end of this month when Anthony Clark steps down after seven years in the post. “Hampstead Theatre and I share a passion for finding new... Read more... |
Darker Shores, Hampstead TheatreTuesday, 08 December 2009![]() What’s the appeal of the traditional ghost story? Is it the knowledge that while the victims of the tale quake in their boots, you are perfectly safe and grinning like the Cheshire Cat? Or is it because the supernatural gives us a chance to journey... Read more... |
