Theatre
Hymn, Almeida Theatre online review - highs and lows of a soulful brother bondingFriday, 19 February 2021
Contact without touch: among the many readjustments that the pandemic has brought to theatre, its demands that restrict direct contact almost to nothing must be among the most testing. We have learnt much about how rigorously any new production –... Read more... |
All On Her Own, Stream.Theatre online review - a vivid monologue on bereavementWednesday, 17 February 2021
This stunningly delivered online monologue from a bereaved widow to her husband feels simultaneously incredibly timely and very dated. At this time of lockdown it is chilling to wonder how many rooms across the world contain individuals with... Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet, Palace Theatre, Manchester online review - futuristic and timelyFriday, 12 February 2021
The story of Romeo and Juliet is well known, worth revisiting endlessly and always relevant. But there is another story here: the making of the piece using innovative digital technology including CGI, to keep actors and creative team safe in a... Read more... |
Good Grief, Platform Presents online review - a little more, pleaseFriday, 12 February 2021
Good Grief, a new show from American screenwriter and playwright Lorien Haynes, can’t work out what it wants to be. It’s billed as an “online filmed production”. Its stars, Sian Clifford (fresh from a BAFTA win for Fleabag) and Nikesh Patel (last... Read more... |
Shook, Papatango online review - strongly acted, but depressingly predictableFriday, 05 February 2021
Film is the new theatre – this we know, but does the distance imposed by the change of medium increase or decrease the impact of the story? The latest example of this problematic switch from stage to screen is the strongly acted Shook, Samuel... Read more... |
Love in a Wood, Jermyn Street Theatre review - stars gather remotely for a lively online presentationMonday, 01 February 2021
Swaggering rakes, posturing fops, sexual intrigue, illicit encounters, wit, artifice, wigs, fans and beauty spots - these are familiar ingredients of Restoration comedy. It is a louche world where the word "mask" is associated with naughty goings on... Read more... |
Peter Pan: The Audio Adventure review - the perfect bedtime storyTuesday, 12 January 2021
The blurb for Peter Pan: The Audio Adventure, Shaun McKenna’s new adaptation of JM Barrie’s classic, tells us, with a hint of firm matronly love, that it is “to be enjoyed with a large cup of cocoa before bed”. Truer words have never been spoken. In... Read more... |
Dick Whittington, National Theatre at Home review - colourful and amiable entertainmentMonday, 11 January 2021
In a much-depleted and truncated pantomime season that withered on the vine, the National Theatre's debut production of Dick Whittington lasted only four performances before the show was cancelled; it has now released this recording, which will be... Read more... |
Best of 2020: TheatreSunday, 27 December 2020
"Goodbye": The single word lingered heavily in the air last March 16, as the scripted closing both of the terrific Southwark Playhouse revival of The Last Five Years and as an ancillary farewell to live theatre. Late afternoon on that same day, in... Read more... |
Living Newspaper: A Counter Narrative, Royal Court online review – the news, but betterThursday, 24 December 2020
Edition 2 of Living Newspaper: A Counter Narrative, an experimental new piece of online theatre from the Royal Court, doesn’t mess around. Within minutes, a cry of "Tory scum" is echoing around the Jerwood Theatre – the refrain of an anarchic... Read more... |
A Christmas Carol, Old Vic online review - the bells have it once againTuesday, 22 December 2020
As proof that you can't have too much of a good thing, consider the return of Matthew Warchus's buoyant production of A Christmas Carol, now marking its fourth year at the Old Vic (with a lauded Broadway run last Christmas included, for good measure... Read more... |
Pantomimes 2020 round-up: what's available onlineMonday, 21 December 2020
Cinderella ****I did worry that pantomime – that most audience-driven of theatrical pursuits – might not work through the tube, but Nottingham Playhouse's warm and funny show dispels any doubts. Pandemic jokes abound (the audience must be smelly... Read more... |
