Theatre
Paradise, National Theatre review - war, woe, and a glimmer of hopeFriday, 13 August 2021
Philoctetes, Odysseus, Neoptolemus: the men’s names in Sophocles’ Philoctetes are all unnecessarily long and weighed down by expectations. Poet Kae Tempest’s lyrical new adaptation for the National Theatre focuses on the chorus, spinning out the... Read more... |
The Windsors: Endgame, Prince of Wales Theatre review - fitfully pointed funWednesday, 11 August 2021
Opposite the playhouse where the sometimes-wild royal comedy The Windsors: Endgame has just opened is the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company seafood restaurant. The eatery is of course inspired by Robert Zemeckis's hit 1994 film Forrest Gump, ... Read more... |
Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's Globe review - foot-stompingly good funWednesday, 11 August 2021
The best version of Twelfth Night I’ve seen is not called Twelfth Night. For sheer knockabout entertainment, nothing beats the 2006 film She’s the Man. But Sean Holmes’ production for the Globe’s summer season, brimming with song and physical comedy... Read more... |
Carousel, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - brave rewrite doesn't landTuesday, 10 August 2021
You've got to hand it to the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park: this venue never simply dusts off a familiar musical title and plonks it onstage. Their commitment to reinvestigating the material, whatever it is, has done wonders for the... Read more... |
Big Big Sky, Hampstead Downstairs review - a perfectly realised character studySaturday, 07 August 2021
Get to Swiss Cottage early because Bob Bailey’s set for Tom Wells's new Hampstead Downstairs play Big Big Sky is a feast for the eyes. Angie’s cafe has the scrapey chairs, the tables you know will wobble a little if you get that one (and you... Read more... |
Anything Goes, Barbican review - an explosion of joyFriday, 06 August 2021
"Times have changed", we're informed in the cascadingly witty title number of the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes, now in revival at the Barbican and bringing with it a pandemic-clearing tsunami of joy.Or have they? Few I am sure would dispute the... Read more... |
Changing Destiny, Young Vic review – an epic literary discoveryMonday, 02 August 2021
The Young Vic, led by the inspiring figure of Kwame Kwei-Armah, is back. After a prolonged closure, during which this venue has passionately continued to work with young directors, the local community (including both delivering food and creative... Read more... |
Bagdad Café, Old Vic review - sweet but scattershotFriday, 30 July 2021
A gorgeous song exists in search of a show to match over at Bagdad Café, the 1987 film that gave the world the memorably plaintive "Calling You", which is threaded throughout Emma Rice's stage adaptation of the movie with understandable... Read more... |
Oleanna, Arts Theatre review - Mamet on power and tragedyThursday, 29 July 2021
Before seeing this play, I decided to eat a steak. It seemed the right culinary equivalent to David Mamet, one of America’s most provocative and, at times, especially past times, red-blooded writers. This play, whose British premiere was at the... Read more... |
The Two Character Play, Hampstead Theatre review - tender, poetic and piercingly cruelTuesday, 27 July 2021
It’s the trivia question no one ever thought to ask: where was the only Tennessee Williams play premiered outside America first performed? The unlikely answer (so unlikely that even artistic director Roxana Silbert apparently didn’t know it until... Read more... |
Lava, Bush Theatre review - poetic writing, mesmerically performedThursday, 22 July 2021
What’s in a name? In Benedict Lombe’s incendiary debut play at the Bush Theatre, the answer to this question encompasses a whole continent, an entire existential experience - the Black experience, to be exact - though not in the way that "roots... Read more... |
Hamlet, Windsor Theatre Royal review - the age is out of jointThursday, 22 July 2021
So it wasn’t Cinderella but Hamlet who was first out of the post-lockdown starting blocks – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s much trumpeted musical premiere being foiled by a ping at the weekend. Instead the historic first curtain-up was 20 miles up the River... Read more... |
