mental health
Othello, Riverside Studios review - three Iagos pitch Shakespeare's villain into the 21st centuryMonday, 09 October 2023
Shakespeare gives Iago over 1000 lines to implant the jealous rage in Othello, so there’s plenty to of raw material to work with. The director Sinéad Rushe has had the idea to split these weaselly words between three actors, a device that seems so... Read more... |
A Voyage Round My Father, Theatre Royal, Bath review - Rupert Everett excels in a play showing its ageSaturday, 07 October 2023
Like theatre itself, the law finds its voice in stories, performance and spectacle. Any law student will, from that very first induction lecture, become suffused in a culture that is informed by and in turn informs theatre, some classes more like an... Read more... |
Imposter 22, Royal Court Theatre review - ace on representation, less so on structureWednesday, 04 October 2023
The Royal Court’s collaboration with Access All Areas (AAA) may not be theatre’s first explicit embrace of the neurodiverse community on stage: Chickenshed has five decades of extraordinary inclusive work behind them and Jellyfish, starring Sarah... Read more... |
Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play, Young Vic review - committed and important play let down by heavy-handed writingWednesday, 27 September 2023
Seldom can a title have given so much away about the play to follow, not just in terms of the subject matter but also in terms of the sledgehammer approach to driving home its points. Kimber Lee, who won the inaugural Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2023 reviews: CHOO CHOO! / Blood of the LambSaturday, 26 August 2023
CHOO CHOO! (Or... Have You Ever Thought About ****** **** *****? (Cos I Have)), Pleasance Dome ★★★★Nye and Duncan seem to live a charmed life. Clad in primary-coloured dungarees, they begin their days with a song, and see what adventures... Read more... |
Marie Darrieussecq: Sleepless review - in search of lost sleepThursday, 17 August 2023
“I lost sleep.” So begins Marie Darrieussecq’s elegantly fitful book, Sleepless, now perceptively translated into English by Penny Hueston. The sentence, suspended against the page’s whiteness, a clause unto itself, is simple, short, and... Read more... |
Macbeth, Shakespeare's Globe review - uneven production of intermittent powerFriday, 11 August 2023
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... Read more... |
'The music business was created for people like me who are not criminal enough to go to jail, and not mad enough to go to the nuthouse'. Sinéad O'Connor, 1966-2023Friday, 28 July 2023
Sinead O’Connor, who has died aged 56, was, the world agrees, a brilliant, unstable, unique talent, a provocateur with an angelic voice. The Mirror’s front page yesterday was a moody black and white picture with the headline “Nothing Compares... Read more... |
Noreen Masud: A Flat Place - reflective landscapesTuesday, 09 May 2023
On the front cover of Noreen Masud’s startling memoir, A Flat Place, a green square of sky is scored across by a notched brown line. It represents the horizon of one of the flat landscapes through which the author travels.Masud is, amongst other... Read more... |
It’s a Motherf**king Pleasure, Soho Theatre review - disability-led comedy hits hardMonday, 01 May 2023
Just when you’ve relaxed a little, privilege duly checked and confident that you won’t be guilt-tripped for nipping into that disabled loo a few years ago at the National (c’mon, the interval was nearly over and needs must), FlawBored drop a bomb... Read more... |
First Person: playwright Joe White on how he came to write his Hampstead Theatre hitFriday, 07 April 2023
Before I knew – or realised – I wanted to write about alcoholism in my play Blackout Songs (premiered last autumn at the Hampstead Downstairs and moving this weekend to the mainstage), I wanted to write about love and memory... Read more... |
Album: Black Honey - A Fistful of PeachesWednesday, 22 March 2023
There’s a disconnect on the third album by Brighton rockers Black Honey. The music is rousing post-grunge indie rock, tuneful, full of vim, but the lyrics speak of someone deeply troubled. The mood is, perhaps, best summed up by “Rock Bottom” which... Read more... |
