Old Vic
The Hairy Ape, Old VicFriday, 30 October 2015
Never use one word when you can get away with two: that seems to have been the maxim of Eugene O’Neill even in one of his shorter plays. After all, when is an ape not hairy, and why does stoker Robert “Yank” Smith, a natural hulk brought low by... Read more... |
Future Conditional, Old VicFriday, 11 September 2015
Can we – should we – control the future? That’s the dilemma faced by anxious parents attempting to steer their offspring through a labyrinthine school system, educational think-tanks, and the teachers shaping young lives. Tamsin Oglesby’s play is an... Read more... |
High Society, Old Vic TheatreFriday, 15 May 2015
It took approximately 30 years for High Society to first make its laborious transition from screen to stage and there are good reasons for that. The indelible impression left by the movie and its star, Grace Kelly, was undoubtedly the biggest, and... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Choreographer Stephen MearSaturday, 11 April 2015
From Singin’ in the Rain and Anything Goes to Hello, Dolly! and Mary Poppins, Olivier Award winner Stephen Mear has done more than any other British choreographer to usher classic musicals into the modern era. But adept as he is at razzle-dazzling ’... Read more... |
Tree, Old VicMonday, 12 January 2015
There is a tree on stage. Not a real tree but a full-size fake one (made by Take 1 Scenic Services) that reaches the ceiling, with lots of branches and leaves. As the audience enters the Old Vic auditorium for this in-the-round production (first... Read more... |
Electra, Old VicThursday, 02 October 2014
As revered as the Greek tragedies may be, I have to admit to feeling a little weary of all that conspicuous, over-ripe angst, and the expectation of our sympathy, even empathy for matricides, patricides, filicides and all such. Rather than resonate... Read more... |
The Crucible, Old VicFriday, 04 July 2014
The posters all over the Underground scream Richard Armitage. As far as they are concerned The Crucible is the finest one-man-show since Clarence Darrow. But what we get in performance is something much more thrilling (if less pin-uppable): a... Read more... |
Clarence Darrow, Old VicThursday, 05 June 2014
Kevin Spacey is seen before he is heard in Clarence Darrow, the solo play that is doing a brief if ferociously bracing run at the Old Vic, but once the actor stops fiddling with his onstage desk and starts to talk, well, watch out. A master ironist... Read more... |
Other Desert Cities, Old VicTuesday, 25 March 2014
Jon Robin Baitz learnt his craft writing on big American television shows including The West Wing and he created Brothers & Sisters, and Other Desert Cities - his first Broadway play - is another family drama with a political edge. The... Read more... |
Fortune's Fool, Old VicTuesday, 17 December 2013
There’s cruel comedy and human drama aplenty in Fortune’s Fool, so much so that it’s hard sometimes to know whether we’re watching farce or tragedy. But it’s a mixture that works well in Lucy Bailey’s production of Ivan Turgenev’s early play in this... Read more... |
Much Ado About Nothing, Old VicFriday, 20 September 2013
“What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?” Surely never before has Benedick’s opening quip cut so close to the literal, nor drawn such a laugh from its audience. With a combined age of 158, the romantic leads in Mark Rylance’s Much Ado About... Read more... |
Sweet Bird of Youth, Old Vic TheatreThursday, 13 June 2013
A town called St Cloud, a girl named Heavenly and a faded star who feels she’s living on the Moon: the imagery of Tennessee Williams’s drama is celestial, yet he puts his characters through hell. Amid the clamour of church bells and self-righteous... Read more... |
