Theatre
The Plough and the Stars, National TheatreThursday, 28 July 2016
Anniversaries are lotteries. Sometimes they allow us to see the past with fresh eyes; at other times, they simply accentuate the growing distance between then and now. Because this year marks the centenary of the Easter Rising of 1916, the National... Read more... |
Half A Sixpence, Chichester Festival TheatreWednesday, 27 July 2016
Watching Cameron Mackintosh’s joyful revision of this Sixties musical, it’s possible to believe for a moment that all the world needs now is love sweet love and a shit-ton of banjos. With a new book by Downton Abbey behemoth Julian Fellowes, new... Read more... |
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Palace TheatreTuesday, 26 July 2016
Harry Potter lives to see another day. The Hogwarts wizard has made his stage debut in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a two-part play that pushes JK Rowling’s world-beating franchise beyond the realm of fiction and film to embrace live action:... Read more... |
Jesus Christ Superstar, Regent's Park Open Air TheatreFriday, 22 July 2016
London’s West End may be the envy of the world, but when it comes to musicals the big-hitting theatres might have to up their game a bit if they’re to keep up with the city’s rival offerings. Compare the summer’s biggest opening, Aladdin (currently... Read more... |
Some Girl(s), Park TheatreWednesday, 20 July 2016
Neil LaBute’s exercise in self-flagellation, first seen in 2005 and adapted for film in 2013, offers his familiar misanthropic take on the battle of the sexes. This one concerns Guy (Charles Dorfman), engaged to be married and embarking on a tour of... Read more... |
Into the Woods, Menier Chocolate FactoryThursday, 14 July 2016
"Children will listen," or so goes a lyric to one of the most heart-rending numbers in Into the Woods, the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical that seems rarely to be long-absent from the British stage. And the great virtue of the Fiasco Theatre's... Read more... |
Unreachable, Royal Court TheatreWednesday, 13 July 2016
There are obvious reasons why films about the theatre outnumber plays about the movie industry, but here’s a play that bucks that trend. Anthony Neilson’s latest drama is located on a film set somewhere distant, hot and challenging but doesn’t allow... Read more... |
The Stripper, St James TheatreTuesday, 12 July 2016
Womanising detectives, shapely dames, gangsters and convoluted criminal conspiracies: Richard O’Brien and Richard Hartley’s 1982 musical take on Carter Brown’s California-set whodunit fiction is pulp noir to the max. However, unlike the pair’s... Read more... |
Bugsy Malone, Lyric HammersmithThursday, 30 June 2016
For those in sore need of a theatrical pick-me-up, jazz square your way over to Bugsy Malone. Last year’s smash-hit opener of the redeveloped Lyric has been given a well-deserved encore, with Sean Holmes’s production once again nailing the beguiling... Read more... |
Faith Healer, Donmar WarehouseWednesday, 29 June 2016
Oh dear. I could have sworn I had a book about Irish playwright Brian Friel somewhere. But I can’t find it. Or maybe I never bought it. Maybe I just thought I might have bought it. Maybe it’s a false memory. Better ask my wife. Now at least I’m in... Read more... |
As You Like It, The Savill Garden, WindsorMonday, 27 June 2016
How often are you charmed by one of Shakespeare’s sylvan romances while literally under a greenwood tree? Even if this summer is proving rather generous with the rough weather, it is an unusual pleasure to wander around a fine woodland garden while... Read more... |
Opinion: Post-Brexit, we need theatre more than everSunday, 26 June 2016
In seeking to understand the historic, divisive and to some bewildering Brexit vote, I will turn to theatre. Through my regular exposure to it, I can number among my ever-widening acquaintance a young king, a whistleblower, a minimum-wage movie... Read more... |
