Theatre
Little Wars, Union Theatre online review - richly emotional, but formulaicTuesday, 03 November 2020
Feuds make good theatre. I mean, look at the furious 1970s spat between playwright Lillian Hellman and critic Mary McCarthy. Yikes. So far, I’ve counted three recent stage versions: in 2002 there was Nora Ephron’s Imaginary Friends, followed in 2014... Read more... |
Nine Lives, Bridge Theatre review - engaging if slim finale to ambitious solo seasonMonday, 26 October 2020
Call him Ishmael, and the Zimbabwe-born, UK-based writer Zodwa Nyoni has done just that. That's the name of the solo character in Nyoni's slight but undeniably affecting 50-minute solo play Nine Lives, which caps a season of monologues at the Bridge... Read more... |
The Great Gatsby, Immersive London review – a warm and electric tribute to the bookFriday, 23 October 2020
The Prohibition-era setting of The Great Gatsby brings an appropriately illicit feel to this bold decision to stage an immersive theatre event in the age of Covid. Where, in 1922, champagne was the essential liquid to get any evening going... Read more... |
Quarter Life Crisis, Bridge Theatre review – slender and superficialMonday, 12 October 2020
Success smells sweet. The Bridge Theatre’s pioneering season of one-person plays continues with sell-out performances of David Hare’s Beat the Devil and Fuel’s production of Inua Ellams’s An Evening with an Immigrant, with both having their runs... Read more... |
Hermione Lee: Tom Stoppard, A Life review - the last word on a theatrical wordsmithWednesday, 07 October 2020
"The older he got, the less he cared about self-concealment," or so it is said of Sir Tom Stoppard, somewhere deep into the 865 pages of Tom Stoppard: A Life, Hermione Lee's capacious (to put it mildly) biography of the... Read more... |
Nights in the Garden of Spain & Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet, Bridge Theatre review - potent mix of pain and comedySunday, 04 October 2020
Stillness works like a stealth bomb in Nights in the Garden of Spain, in which Tamsin Greig further confirms her status as one of this country's finest actresses. Kicking off the final pairing in an indispensable series of Alan Bennett double bills... Read more... |
Playing Sandwiches & A Lady of Letters, Bridge Theatre review - the darkness dazzles, twice overThursday, 01 October 2020
"Getting dark," or so comments Irene Ruddock (a pitch-perfect Imelda Staunton) in passing midway through A Lady of Letters, and, boy, ain't that the truth? Both this monologue, and the one that precedes it (Playing Sandwiches, featuring the mighty... Read more... |
Sunnymead Court, Tristan Bates Theatre review - a lovely lockdown romanceSaturday, 26 September 2020
The first words of Sunnymead Court, a new play at the Tristan Bates Theatre, are ominous. “We are transitioning from human experiences to digital experiences.” Oof. Thankfully, this isn’t another gloomy lockdown drama about the evils of Zoom quizzes... Read more... |
An Evening with an Immigrant, Bridge Theatre review – poetic and engagingFriday, 25 September 2020
When the history of British theatre’s response to COVID-19 comes to be written, the names of two men will feature prominently: Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr. The “two Nicks” were the creative force behind the National Theatre’s pioneering NT Live... Read more... |
The Cheeky Chappie, The Warren Outdoors review - entertaining drama about risqué comic Max MillerWednesday, 23 September 2020
It’s fitting that there’s another run of Dave Simpson’s terrific play about Brighton’s favourite son, Max Miller (aka The Cheeky Chappie), at this delightful pop-up on the seafront he knew and loved so well.Jamie Kenna, who has been playing the role... Read more... |
The Shrine & Bed Among the Lentils, Bridge Theatre review - loneliness shared, with wit and melancholySaturday, 12 September 2020
Monologues and duets rule the stage right now. We can only dream of the day when theatre steps up to the classical music scene’s boldness and manages to have more performers gathered together, albeit suitably distanced (not so easy when the drama... Read more... |
The Outside Dog & The Hand of God, Bridge Theatre review - gems of frustration and disquietFriday, 11 September 2020
For some of us, it doesn’t take a lockdown to imprison us in our own hellish little world. Since his first series of dramatic monologues, broadcast on the BBC in 1988, Alan Bennett has taken a scalpel to the mindsets of those who have battled life’s... Read more... |
