Theatre
Bend It Like Beckham The Musical, Phoenix TheatreThursday, 25 June 2015
Gurinder Chadha's Bend It Like Beckham was a huge hit, a small-budget British film that in 2002 unexpectedly found an international audience way beyond its setting in suburban west London, and made stars of its two young leads, Keira Knightley and... Read more... |
An Oak Tree, National TheatreWednesday, 24 June 2015
The play I have just seen is not the play you will see. Of course, one of the draws of live performance is that no two nights are the same, but that idea is taken to a mesmerising extreme in Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree, celebrating its 10th anniversary... Read more... |
Luna Gale, Hampstead TheatreTuesday, 23 June 2015
Can we really distinguish between experience-based judgement and personal bias? Caroline, the social worker at the centre of American writer Rebecca Gilman’s latest "issue" play, trusts a gut instinct informed by her 25-year career, but those... Read more... |
The Motherf**ker with the Hat, National TheatreThursday, 18 June 2015
The play that lost the 2011 Tony Award to War Horse is now receiving its British debut at the very address where War Horse premiered. But such theatrical coincidences won't register in most circles as much as a title, The Motherf**ker with the Hat,... Read more... |
Hang, Royal Court TheatreWednesday, 17 June 2015
One of the most talented playwrights to emerge in the 2000s, debbie tucker green is a law unto herself. The best word to describe her is uncompromising. When I interviewed her in 2003 she refused pointblank to answer any questions about her West... Read more... |
We Want You To Watch, National TheatreTuesday, 16 June 2015
“We’re completely pro sex.” Rashdash, who collaborated with Alice Birch on this anarchic challenge to pornography, are not objecting on prudish grounds – their concern is the corrosive impact of degrading, dehumanising material. We are all... Read more... |
Gallery: The Drowned Man of PunchdrunkMonday, 15 June 2015
Punchdrunk entered the world of theatre through a side door in the basement. The company navigated a strange path around abandoned warehouses on the edge of town, via the odd wrong turn and sundry culs de sac, and fetched up two years ago at an old... Read more... |
Arise, Sir Van, Sir Lenny and Sir Kevin. Dame who?Saturday, 13 June 2015
If the honours system is used to award deserving individuals, its other job is to provide an aspirational marker for the country as a whole. This, it tells us twice a year, is who we want to be: inclusive, non-sexist, colour-blind. From the look of... Read more... |
An Audience with Jimmy Savile, Park TheatreFriday, 12 June 2015
Seldom has there been such impassioned debate about whether a play has a right to exist. Writer Jonathan Maitland faced a barrage of criticism, with many accusing him of exploitation; others felt it was too soon for freshly unveiled horror to re-... Read more... |
The Red Lion, National TheatreThursday, 11 June 2015
Football is a subject close to Patrick Marber's heart. He's a lifelong Arsenal fan and during his sojourn away from London (and writing, as he was suffering from writer's block for much of it) in Sussex, he became involved with his local non-league... Read more... |
Violence and Son, Royal Court TheatreTuesday, 09 June 2015
Titles can be warnings as well as come-ons. In Gary Owen’s new play about a teenager growing up in the Welsh Valleys, it’s not difficult to guess what the main theme of the play is. Stumbling out of the performance tonight I had the distinct... Read more... |
Waiting for Godot, BarbicanSunday, 07 June 2015
In a peculiarly Beckettian development, the creative team of this Sydney Theatre Company production spent several weeks of rehearsal waiting not for Godot, but for their director. Tamás Ascher – who spotted the casting potential of Uncle Vanya co-... Read more... |
