Theatre
One Minute, The VaultsSaturday, 12 September 2015
The repercussions of loss ripple inexorably through Simon Stephens’ 2003 play One Minute. Foreshadowing elements the prolific playwright has developed in his later work, it’s a testing piece that speaks most of all about the currents of loneliness... 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... |
Lela & Co, Royal Court TheatreThursday, 10 September 2015
When is a monologue not quite a monologue? When it is interrupted by another voice, one that contradicts and argues with it. In Cordelia Lynn’s Lela & Co, her Royal Court debut which is effectively and savagely staged in the claustrophobic heat... Read more... |
When We Were Women, Orange Tree TheatreTuesday, 08 September 2015
Can you peg a whole play on a decent twist? When We Were Women’s narrative tease pays off interestingly, but takes a hell of a long time getting there. It leaves little space to explore the ramifications of an intriguing revelation, a frustration... Read more... |
Song from Far Away, Young VicSaturday, 05 September 2015
“My brother died.” That’s the reality New York-based banker Willem struggles to inhabit when he returns to his estranged family in Amsterdam. There is no sense in Pauli’s loss – a sudden heart attack at 20, cradled by a stranger in the street – nor... Read more... |
People, Places and Things, National TheatreWednesday, 02 September 2015
We all know what the word “addict” means, but what does it feel like to be one? Thirtysomething Emma – a minor actress played with immense conviction and quirky charm by Denise Gough – knows exactly. At one point in Duncan Macmillan’s... Read more... |
Murmel Murmel, King's Theatre, EdinburghMonday, 31 August 2015
It felt a bit like we were seeing things. At the fag-end of Edinburgh’s 2015 August of festival mayhem, with extreme exhaustion and input overload mixing to brain-addling effect in the heads of most festival-goers and participants, a hallucinatory,... Read more... |
You Won't Succeed On Broadway If You Don't Have Any Jews, St James TheatreFriday, 28 August 2015
Well, here’s an oddity. You Won’t Succeed... is too fragmented for musical theatre, too bombastic for cabaret, and about as profound as a first-draft Wikipedia page. Channelling the self-referential levity of the Monty Python show from which it... Read more... |
Our Country's Good, National TheatreThursday, 27 August 2015
The political wheel has turned full-circle. When Our Country’s Good was premiered in 1988, it was a barely-veiled protest against Thatcher’s slash-and-burn approach to the arts in general and arts funding in particular. It couldn’t have returned at... Read more... |
Hamlet, BarbicanWednesday, 26 August 2015
The set turns out to be the thing now that Benedict Cumberbatch's star turn in Hamlet has finally arrived, trailing in its wake a level of expectation, hysteria and scrutiny that might well have made many a lesser actor head for the hills. None... Read more... |
10 Questions for Actor Jason HughesMonday, 24 August 2015
Jason Hughes belongs to an influential generation of actors who emerged from South Wales in the 1990s. A promising rugby player as a teenager, his head was turned by theatre. Ruth Jones and Rob Brydon were only a few years above him at school in... Read more... |
Lady Anna: All At Sea, Park TheatreSaturday, 22 August 2015
If you were expecting a fusty, formal adaptation of Anthony Trollope – and one of his least known novels, to boot – Lady Anna: All At Sea will come as a breath of fresh air. Colin Blumenau’s production of Craig Baxter’s play, based loosely around... Read more... |
