Theatre
A Place for We, Park Theatre review - perceptive, but rather flabbyWednesday, 27 October 2021
I’ve lived in Brixton, south London, for about 40 years now, so any play that looks at the gentrification of the area is, for me, definitely a must. Like many other places in the metropolis, the nature of the urban landscape has changed both due to... Read more... |
Royal Opera House lullabies for Little AmalTuesday, 26 October 2021
“I want to tell her that people will be good,” Tewodros Aregawe of Phosphoros Theatre confided to us as Little Amal closed her eyes on the giant bed made up for her in the Paul Hamlyn Hall, “that all the people with kind eyes who have walked... Read more... |
Vanara, Hackney Empire review - fine singing, but a plodding book and one-pitch score in this new musicalTuesday, 26 October 2021
Two tribes, both alike in dignity in fair Vanara, trade goods and insults in a post-apocalyptic world in which fire is known to The Kogallisk but not to The Pana. When The Oroznah, a shaman respected by both feuding factions, foretells a long winter... Read more... |
The Shark Is Broken, New Ambassadors Theatre review - how Spielberg's first blockbuster almost didn't happenSaturday, 23 October 2021
Jaws was the Moby Dick of late 20th century capitalism, a fantasy about fear and the unknown for a society that had rarely felt more secure and powerful. Despite the tremors caused by the Watergate scandal and the loss of the Vietnam war, the US... Read more... |
Grenfell: Value Engineering, The Tabernacle review - bruising, necessary theatreWednesday, 20 October 2021
Grenfell: Value Engineering isn’t actually a play. It’s an edited version of the testimony heard by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, particularly Phase 2, from January 2020 to July 2021. Along with director/producer Nicolas Kent, Richard Norton-Taylor... Read more... |
Love and Other Acts of Violence, Donmar Warehouse review - snappy and tightly intelligent but flawedTuesday, 19 October 2021
This is simultaneously a love story and an archaeology of hate, a sparky, spiky encounter between two individuals whose chemistry proves as destructive as it is explosive.Love and Other Acts of Violence opens with a comedic encounter on a dance... Read more... |
Rice, Orange Tree Theatre review - whip-smart, but unsure where it standsTuesday, 19 October 2021
“Careful, there’s a hole in the floor.” The warning’s an unusual one, passed along conscientiously by the stewards at the door of the tiny Orange Tree Theatre.The hole in question is long and angular and will soon be filled with water, stretching... Read more... |
The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Lyric Hammersmith review - matchless revival of a contemporary classicMonday, 18 October 2021
“You can’t kick a cow in Leenane without some bastard holding a grudge for 20 years,” sighs Pato Dooley (Adam Best) prophetically; he has already started making his escape from that particular Galway village, doing lonely stints on London building... Read more... |
The Cherry Orchard, Windsor Theatre Royal review - Tolstoy meets Mrs Two SoupsSaturday, 16 October 2021
The cherry orchard in Anton Chekhov’s eponymous play is a classic MacGuffin, its existence a reason to stir the sorts of resentments, fancies and identity causes that start wars and revolutions. The orchard’s beautiful, and that’s all – a cultivated... Read more... |
Macbeth, Almeida Theatre review – vivid, but much too longFriday, 15 October 2021
Remembering the months of lockdown, I can’t be the only person to thrill to this play’s opening lines, “When shall we three meet again?”, a phrase evocative enough to be borrowed as the first line of this year’s Wolf Alice album, Blue Weekend.... Read more... |
White Noise, Bridge Theatre review - provocative if not always plausibleFriday, 15 October 2021
"I can't sleep": So goes the fateful opening line of White Noise, the Suzan-Lori Parks play disturbing enough to spark many a restless night in playgoers who are prepared to take its numerous provocations on board. To do so requires various... Read more... |
First Person: Rachel O'Riordan on the enduring power of a sad, funny, and extraordinary playWednesday, 13 October 2021
The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a vicious, sad and extraordinary play.On the surface, Martin McDonagh's play, first seen 25 years ago and revived now in a collaboration between Chichester Festival Theatre and my home base, the Lyric Hammersmith... Read more... |
