Theatre
The Hills of California, Harold Pinter Theatre - ladies' night for Jez ButterworthSaturday, 17 February 2024
Art makes for unexpected bedfellows, and so it proves in Jez Butterworth's moving if meandering The Hills of California. Butterworth's first play in seven years owes a lot more to as unexpected a source as the musical Gypsy than it does to such... Read more... |
Dear Octopus, National Theatre - period rarity is a real pleasureFriday, 16 February 2024
Sisters are doing it for themselves, just as families as a whole are, too, on the London stage these days. Dear Octopus follows Till the Stars Come Down and The Hills of California as the third domestic drama I've seen in the last 10 days and... Read more... |
Just For One Day, The Old Vic review - clunky scenes and self-conscious exposition between great songsThursday, 15 February 2024
So, a jukebox musical celebrating the apotheosis of the White Saviour, the ultimate carnival of rock stars’ self-aggrandisement and the Boomers’ biggest bonanza of feelgood posturing? One is tempted to stand opposite The Old Vic, point at the... Read more... |
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Theatre Royal Haymarket review - inventive rollercoaster of a revampWednesday, 14 February 2024
Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novella The Picture of Dorian Gray has given the world a trope built for flattery, along the lines of: “You look so young, you must have a portrait growing old in your attic”. But how many who use this line have read the text... Read more... |
Ragnarok, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh review - moving miniature apocalypseTuesday, 13 February 2024
In terms of conveying monumental events using small-scale means, Edinburgh’s Tortoise in a Nutshell visual theatre company has form. Their 2013 Feral, for example, depicted the social breakdown of an apparently idyllic seaside town using puppetry... Read more... |
Many Good Men, Tynecastle Stadium, Edinburgh review - daring but flawed provocationSaturday, 10 February 2024
There’s been an incident in Edinburgh. Right near the Scottish Parliament. Several dead, many more injured. Among the witnesses were two of the capital’s young football stars, now clearly traumatised by what they’ve seen. Someone shouting about... Read more... |
Fascinating Aida, London Palladium review - celebrating 40 glorious years of filth and defianceFriday, 09 February 2024
You don’t expect a couple of septuagenarian contraltos, aided by a spring chicken of a soprano in her fifties, to sing naughty ditties about jacksies and titties. Then again, if you are a Fascinating Aida fan, you do. Thousands of fans turned... Read more... |
Othello, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - 21st century interpretation delivers food for thoughtThursday, 08 February 2024
Detective Chief Inspector Othello leads a quasi-paramilitary team of Metropolitan Police officers investigating gang activity in Docklands. With a chequered past now behind him, he has reformed and has the respect of both the team he leads and his... Read more... |
Metamorphosis, Lyric Hammersmith review - vivid images, but where's the drama?Wednesday, 07 February 2024
Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis is a novella whose cultural resonance has echoed loudly down the years. As a modernist metaphor for alienation in our times it has frequently been adapted for the stage. There have been classic, and popular, adaptations... Read more... |
Bronco Billy, Charing Cross Theatre - schmaltzy musical brings the feelgood factor just when it's neededTuesday, 06 February 2024
When entering a particular, well-populated region of MusicalTheatreLand, one has to check in a few items at the border. Weary cynicism, the desire for narrative coherence, that nerve that starts to throb when sentimentality oozes across the fourth... Read more... |
Till the Stars Come Down, National Theatre review - exuberant comedy with a dark edgeSaturday, 03 February 2024
The National Theatre is meant to represent the whole nation – and not just the metropolitan middle classes. So it’s really good to see that Beth Steel – who comes from an East Midlands working-class background and was once writer in... Read more... |
A Mirror, Trafalgar Theatre review - puzzle play with an empty coreSaturday, 03 February 2024
Take dollops of Orwell and Kafka, with a sprinkling of Pirandello for a lighter texture, then bake. That could be the recipe for Sam Holcroft’s A Mirror, now transferred from the Almeida to the West End for a limited run.It will probably be bait for... Read more... |
