Theatre
Brighton Festival 2019 launches with Guest Director Rokia TraoréWednesday, 13 February 2019
The striking cover for the Brighton Festival 2019 programme shouts out loud who this year’s Guest Director is. Silhouetted in flowers, in stunning artwork by Simon Prades, is the unmistakeable profile of Malian musician Rokia Traoré. Taking place... Read more... |
The Price, Wyndham's Theatre review - David Suchet stands supremeTuesday, 12 February 2019
There’s a rather sublime equilibrium to Arthur Miller’s 1968 play between the overwhelmingly heavy weight of history and a sheer life force that somehow functions, against all odds, as its counterbalance. But in purely dramatic terms the scales of... Read more... |
The Good Person of Szechwan, Pushkin Drama Theatre, Barbican review - slick Russian BrechtMonday, 11 February 2019
"In our country the capable man needs luck," belts out Shen Te, the Good Person of Szechwan in the most powerful song of Brecht's epic "parable play" of 1941. "Only if he has powerful backers can he prove his capacity." Never was that more true than... Read more... |
Trevor Nunn: 'I'm amazed by Harley Granville Barker's prescience and extraordinary modernity'Sunday, 10 February 2019
So here we are with another edition of IQ, and the subject this week is theatre. Question one: which actor originated several leading roles in the plays of George Bernard Shaw, including Marchbanks in Candida, Dubedat in The Doctor's Dilemma, and... Read more... |
Blue, Chapter Arts Centre review - heartbreak in the family homeFriday, 08 February 2019
What's worse than grieving? That all-consuming loss. For those that have experienced it, nothing really comes close. It starts to bug Thomas (Jordan Bernarde, main picture second right) during his visit to the Williams household. Recently bereaved... Read more... |
Pinter Seven, Harold Pinter Theatre review - elaborations of anxietyThursday, 07 February 2019
It was back to the very beginning for this final instalment of “Pinter at the Pinter”, with its pairing of A Slight Ache and The Dumb Waiter. Both were written at the end of the 1950s, which explained a certain rock’n’roll vibe in the auditorium,... Read more... |
Home, I'm Darling, Duke of York's Theatre review - Katherine Parkinson rules the roostThursday, 07 February 2019
The Fifties? They were terrible: bone-cold houses where people huddled round the fireplace for heat, empty Sundays that lasted a month, drawn-out rationing, bread you could build houses with. It was all making do and mending and "grey meat, grey... Read more... |
The Cherry Orchard, Pushkin Drama Theatre, Barbican review - stunning absurdist ChekhovWednesday, 06 February 2019
There is no doubt that this Cherry Orchard, whirled into town by Roman Abramovich from Moscow, is going to be divisive. If you, like the two elegant old gentlemen sat next to me on press night, have come to see the Pushkin Drama Theatre’s... Read more... |
Beast on the Moon, Finborough Theatre review - drama of familial displacement packs a quiet punchWednesday, 06 February 2019
In the history of early photography in the Middle East, it was the Armenian Christian traders and their descendents who became the pioneers of the new technology. Their numbers include the Armenian-Turkish photojournalist Ara Güler, "the Eye of... Read more... |
Superhoe, Royal Court review - smart, sassy, and full of feelingTuesday, 05 February 2019
Titles matter: they send out messages. So, in the current #MeToo climate, isn't it a bit provocative that there's a rash of plays with titles which might be seen to offend: The Hoes, Superhoe and, coming soon, Inside Bitch? Not to mention the... Read more... |
Cost of Living, Hampstead Theatre review - tough but tenderFriday, 01 February 2019
The Off Broadway production of Cost of Living two years ago brought Martyna Majok the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the height of acclaim of which most new writers – Majok, with four plays behind her, has yet to turn 35 – can only dream. High... Read more... |
Counting Sheep, The Vaults review - visceral recreation of an uprisingThursday, 31 January 2019
Is there a connection between revolution and theatre? The answer has to be yes – a visceral one. The supremacy of symbols, the collective strength of a crowd, a sense that some kind of pressure valve is being released to challenge the dominant... Read more... |
