Theatre
887, Edinburgh International Conference CentreMonday, 17 August 2015
Incoming director Fergus Linehan has assembled some of the most respected names in their fields for his first Edinburgh International Festival. For classical music, that means Anne-Sophie Mutter, Valery Gergiev and Michael Tilson Thomas (among many... Read more... |
The Iliad, British Museum /Almeida TheatreSaturday, 15 August 2015
You don’t know Homer’s Iliad until you’ve heard it read aloud, all 24 books – not quite every line, but almost – and 16 hours of it. Yesterday's marathon was surely something like the events in which the Athenians kept the oral tradition... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2015: Walking the Tightrope/Maddy Anholt/ Phil JerrodTuesday, 11 August 2015
Walking the Tightrope, Underbelly Potterow ★★★★ Subtitled The Tension Between Art and Politics, this collection of eight short plays on the subject of censorship was prompted by the boycott of an Israeli hip hop troupe at this venue last year.... Read more... |
Crossing Jerusalem, Park TheatreSaturday, 08 August 2015
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not been very prominent in the news recently, but that doesn’t mean that it has gone away. As Julia Pascal’s 2003 play reminds us, religious and cultural tensions can go deep. Very deep. At the centre of her... Read more... |
Grand Hotel, Southwark PlayhouseFriday, 07 August 2015
Never in a million years would you guess that Grand Hotel – the 1989 New York hit now brilliantly revived at Southwark Playhouse – is one of Broadway's great rescue jobs. That something seemingly so organic, so cohesive, so intricate could have... Read more... |
The Heresy of Love, Shakespeare's GlobeThursday, 06 August 2015
Helen Edmundson’s The Heresy of Love may be set in 17th century Mexico and follow the conflict between strict religion and personal development, but its theme of a woman denied her voice by a surrounding male hierarchy retains real contemporary... Read more... |
Splendour, Donmar WarehouseWednesday, 05 August 2015
On contemporary stages, absence is a constant presence. This is very odd if you consider how corporeal and concrete theatre is. Unlike film, which is just light shining on a screen, or books, which are just letters on the page, theatre is live... Read more... |
Dear Lupin, Apollo TheatreTuesday, 04 August 2015
A sterling case is made for the lost art of letter-writing in Michael Simkins’ dramatisation of Roger Mortimer’s missives to his wayward son. Mortimer’s inimitable turn of phrase, preserved in epistolary form, is the highlight of a genial show... Read more... |
Bakkhai, Almeida TheatreFriday, 31 July 2015
This is the real Greek, bloody-fantastical thing. After the fascinating but flawed attempt to bring Aeschylus’s Oresteia into the 21st century, the Almeida has turned to a more tradition-conscious kind of experiment with Euripides’ last and greatest... Read more... |
Of Thee I Sing, RFHFriday, 31 July 2015
Satire may famously be what on Broadway closes Saturday night, but last night's concert performance of the Gershwin brothers' Of Thee I Sing found many patrons fleeing the Festival Hall at the interval. The culprit lay in sound issues that... Read more... |
First Person: Dear LupinWednesday, 29 July 2015
When I got the call enquiring whether I’d like to adapt The Sunday Times Humour Book of the Year Dear Lupin for the stage, the first thing I did was to thank my lucky stars. Dear Lupin: Letters to a Wayward Son is a collection of real letters,... Read more... |
Three Days in the Country, National TheatreWednesday, 29 July 2015
The trouble with the classics is that they are long, complex and difficult. But today’s sensibility favours the quick, simple and easy. So it is no surprise that the National Theatre have opened its doors to Patrick Marber, who has taken Ivan... Read more... |
