new writing
The Lie, Menier Chocolate Factory review - fake news, real feelingMonday, 09 October 2017
A year after premiering acclaimed French playwright Florian Zeller’s The Truth, the Menier Chocolate Factory now hosts The Lie – which, as the name suggests, acts as a companion piece of sorts. Once again, we’re in a slippery Pinteresque realm... Read more... |
Labour of Love, Noël Coward Theatre, review - Martin Freeman and Tamsin Greig labour in vainWednesday, 04 October 2017
Prolific playwright James Graham aspires to be nothing if not timely. His latest, a play about the Labour Party, was originally due to open during the week of that party’s conference, when our ears were once again ringing to the chant of “Oh, Jeremy... Read more... |
B, Royal Court review - intriguing, ironical, but flawedTuesday, 03 October 2017
In the 1960s, we had the theatre of commitment; today we have an attitude of non-committal. Once, political playwrights could be guaranteed to tell you what to think, to describe what was wrong with society – and what to do about it. Now, as Chilean... Read more... |
'I’d never written a play as a single action before': David Eldridge on 'Beginning'Saturday, 30 September 2017
My friend, the playwright Robert Holman, says that the writing of a play is always “the product of a moment”. Of course, he’s right, but sometimes you have to pick your moment.In autumn 2015 a TV writing gig hadn’t worked out in the way that I’d... Read more... |
Ramona Tells Jim, Bush Theatre, review – kooky, teenage heartbreakSaturday, 23 September 2017
Location, location, location. Jim thinks he lives in the “shittiest” small town in Scotland. It’s Mallaig, on the west coast, and he’s a deeply troubled 32-year-old, working for a fish merchant and as a nature guide, but having no friends. His flat... Read more... |
Prism, Hampstead Theatre review - a life through the lensFriday, 15 September 2017
Jack Cardiff was one of the all-time greats of cinematography, the man who shot such Powell and Pressburger classics as The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death, worked on John Huston’s The African Queen with Humphrey Bogart and Katharine... Read more... |
Gloria, Hampstead Theatre review – pretty gloriousFriday, 23 June 2017
As with life, so it is in art: in the same way that one can't predict the curve balls that get thrown our way, the American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins defies categorisation. On the basis of barely a handful of plays, two of which happen now... Read more... |
Terror, Lyric Hammersmith review – more gimmick than dramaFriday, 23 June 2017
Can the theatre be a courtroom? A good public place to debate morality and to arrive at profound decisions? You could answer this with a history lesson that ranges from the ancient Greeks to more recent tribunal plays in the 1960s and 1990s. But I’... Read more... |
Hir, Bush Theatre review – transgender home is sub-primeWednesday, 21 June 2017
Donald Trump’s electoral success was, we have been told, fuelled by the anger of the American working class. But how do you show that kind of anger on stage, and how do you criticise its basis in traditional masculinity? One way, and this is the... Read more... |
Guards at the Taj, Bush Theatre review - ‘powerful but ethically troubling’Thursday, 13 April 2017
The Bush is back! After a whole year of darkness, the West London new writing venue has reopened its doors following a £4.3million remodelling and refurb, a project close to the heart of its artistic director Madani Younis. Designed by architect... Read more... |
A Dark Night in Dalston, Park TheatreTuesday, 14 March 2017
Michelle Collins, actor and TV presenter, is so strongly associated with her roles in EastEnders and Coronation Street that it is something of a shock to see her live on stage at the Park Theatre, and not behind a bar or in a snug. And although she... Read more... |
The Sewing Group, Royal Court TheatreThursday, 17 November 2016
The beauty of the past is that it’s a foreign country, and you don’t need a visa to visit it. With the free movement of the imagination you can conjure up life as it might have once been experienced. You can even join a re-enactment society. In the... Read more... |
