Royal Court
Hole, Royal Court review - anger is not quite enoughThursday, 06 December 2018Actor Ellie Kendrick is a familiar face on television, but it's only as a writer that she reveals the depth of her rage against the world. At least, that's what it feels like. After starring in the BBC's The Diary of Anne Frank while still at school... Read more... |
Still No Idea, Royal Court review - spiky, funny, and politically pointedTuesday, 06 November 2018To the recent spate of shows that put their own narrative-building first, we can now add Still No Idea, with the addendum that this self-penned two-hander may be the funniest and fiercest of them all to date. Eight years ago, Lisa Hammond and... Read more... |
ear for eye, Royal Court review - powerful and passionate anti-racismFriday, 02 November 2018Two countries; two histories. Being black in the US; being black in the UK. Compare and contrast. Which is exactly what debbie tucker green’s amazingly ambitious new epic, which straddles centuries and continents, succeeds in doing. Taking a... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Theatre Producer Elyse DodgsonFriday, 26 October 2018The Royal Court Theatre has long been a leader in new British drama writing. Thanks to Elyse Dodgson, who has died aged 73, it has built up an international programme like few others in the arts, anywhere. At the theatre, Elyse headed up readings,... Read more... |
Poet in da Corner, Royal Court review - mind-blowing energy plus plus plusWednesday, 26 September 2018There was once a time when grime music was very angry, and very threatening, but that seems a long time ago now. Today, Dizzee Rascal is less a herald of riot and revolt, and more of a national treasure, exuding charm from every pore, even if his... Read more... |
The Woods, Royal Court review - Lesley Sharp triumphs againThursday, 13 September 2018Blackout. Dark, the colour of childhood fear. Black, the colour of despair. Black. No light visible; no colours to see. Just pitch black, maybe even bible black. This is how Robert Alan Evans’s The Woods, which stars the brilliant Lesley Sharp and... Read more... |
Pity, Royal Court review - whacked-out and wearingSaturday, 21 July 2018The apocalypse arrives as a series of collegiate sketches in the aptly-named Pity, the Rory Mullarkey play that may well prompt sympathy for audiences who unwittingly find themselves in attendance. Less provocative by far than this same writer's... Read more... |
One for Sorrow, Royal Court review - imploding family dramaThursday, 28 June 2018It’s the stuff of nightmares. There’s a massive explosion, the sound of smashing glass, falling debris and police sirens. Gunshots. Panic in the streets. It could be the November 2015 Paris terror attacks, in which the Bataclan venue was the scene... Read more... |
Notes From the Field, Royal Court review - sobering report from the frontline of raceSaturday, 16 June 2018Anna Deavere Smith contains multitudes. As the solo performance artist recounts the testimonies she has selected from the more than 250 people she interviewed for this portrait of inequality and the criminal justice system in America, it is as if... Read more... |
The Prudes, Royal Court review - hilarious but frustrating sex showWednesday, 25 April 2018Playwright Anthony Neilson has always been fascinated by sex. I mean, who isn’t? But he has made it a central part of his career. In his bad-boy in-yer-face phase, from the early 1990s to about the mid-2000s, he pioneered a type of theatre that... Read more... |
Instructions for Correct Assembly, Royal Court review - Jane Horrocks in Middle England 'Westworld'Monday, 16 April 2018There’s a whole universe which British theatre has yet to explore properly – it’s called the sci-fi imagination. Although this place is familiar from countless films and television series, it is more or less a stranger to our stages. With notable... Read more... |
Black Men Walking, Royal Court review - inspiring and exhilaratingFriday, 23 March 2018In the same week that saw the arrival of Arinzé Kene’s Misty, a play that passionately questions the clichés of plays about black Britons (you know, gun crime, knife crime and domestic abuse), Black Men Walking opens at the Royal Court. Having... Read more... |