new writing
Wild, Hampstead TheatreTuesday, 21 June 2016
Who do you trust? The EU Referendum campaign has exposed a mounting suspicion of the establishment, from financial institutions to press and politicians, and our sense of nationhood has never been murkier. But if we cease to believe in anything, how... Read more... |
The House of Mirrors & Hearts, ArcolaThursday, 09 July 2015
Musicals are cheesy by nature, aren’t they? If not cheesy, then picturesque. The cast of Les Mis may be grimy and poor, but they’re picture-postcard poor. Even modern musicals play by the rules.But Aemonn O’Dwyer and Rob Gilbert break most of them... Read more... |
Buckets, Orange Tree TheatreFriday, 05 June 2015
“The only way is up” might have been the motto for the Orange Tree over the past year. Last spring, the future couldn’t have looked bleaker for the Richmond producing house when it lost its entire Arts Council grant overnight. Yet here we are, seven... Read more... |
I Wish to Die Singing, Finborough TheatreThursday, 30 April 2015
Agitprop is a term that seems to have dropped out of use. It has too many negative connotations; it smacks of political rant. Yet artistic director Neil McPherson, whose small and feisty Finborough Theatre at Earls Court receives no public funding... Read more... |
Lampedusa, Soho TheatreThursday, 16 April 2015
You might think you know what you’re in for with a play by Anders Lustgarten, winner of the inaugural Harold Pinter Playwright’s Award and current go-to political activist for the Royal Court and the National. Listed alongside the plays on his CV is... Read more... |
Charlie's Dark Angel, Drayton Arms TheatreSunday, 08 March 2015
The critic James Christopher describes his first stage play as a black comedy, and the opening few moments set out the noir element efficiently enough, if not with any discernable humour. Charlie (Ben Porter) has inherited an old Suffolk farmhouse... Read more... |
Game, Almeida TheatreThursday, 05 March 2015
This venue is one of the coolest in London — and its regular audience is both trendy and well-heeled. In the foyer, you get jostled by a better class of person. For this immersive show, written by the prolific and ever-inventive Mike Bartlett, the... Read more... |
Bull, Young VicThursday, 15 January 2015
Mike Bartlett is the most prolific and talented British playwright to emerge in the past decade. Not only has he created large-scale epics in a variety of styles — from the science-fiction fable Earthquakes in London to the Shakespearean King... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Playwright Nina RaineSaturday, 06 December 2014
When writers research, it’s not all about digging for facts. Feelings also count. When Nina Raine spent three months visiting hospitals for a play about the medical profession, she found a strange feeling spontaneously erupting inside herself. “The... Read more... |
The Distance, Orange Tree TheatreSaturday, 11 October 2014
Are there any real taboos left? I mean, there have been scores of plays about incest, about abuse and about paedophilia. Have all proverbial stones been turned over? According to Deborah Bruce, a director turned playwright, there is one situation... Read more... |
The James Plays, National TheatreSaturday, 27 September 2014
Rona Munro’s trilogy of plays about Scotland’s Stuart kings premiered at the Edinburgh Festival when Scottish independence was, for many, still a cherished possibility; it transfers to London – within a clarion call of Westminster – just as the... Read more... |
King Charles III, Wyndham's TheatreFriday, 12 September 2014
Prince Charles’s “black spider letters” - his attempts to influence or change government policy - are real, as is the government’s long collusion with Clarence House to keep them from the public, despite the efforts of The Guardian in particular to... Read more... |
