Theatre Reviews
The Go-Between, Apollo TheatreWednesday, 08 June 2016
It has taken six years – and Michael Crawford – to bring Richard Taylor and David Wood’s poetic musicalisation of LP Hartley’s The Go-Between to the West End stage. And before the tired old debate begins as to what it is – opera? musical? play with music? – let it be said that what really counts for something here is the storytelling. Read more...
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The 306: Dawn, Dalcrue Farm, PerthMonday, 06 June 2016
The journey begins amid the glassy modernity of Perth’s gleaming Concert Hall. From there, you’re bussed a few miles out into the Perthshire countryside to a blasted, burnt-out farmhouse. And its neighbouring barn, transformed into a forest of rifles and a maze of trenches for the National Theatre of Scotland’s sorrowful new World War One show The 306: Dawn. Read more... |
The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare's GlobeSaturday, 04 June 2016
There’s a problem with The Taming of the Shrew, and it isn’t the one of Shakespeare’s making. So legendary are the work’s difficulties, so notorious its potential misogyny, that each new production can feel like a proffered solution, a defence of an attack that has yet to be made, rather than a free dialogue with a set of characters and a story. Read more... |
Minefield, Royal Court TheatreSaturday, 04 June 2016
Like the 1956 Suez Crisis for a previous generation, the 1982 Falklands War (or should that be Islas Malvinas War?) was a turning point for all those who lived through the Thatcher decade. Such was the hysteria at the time that to protest against the conflict was to attract accusations of treason – I remember one anti-war march in central London where the police outnumbered the demonstrators, and filmed us all. Read more... |
The Spoils, Trafalgar StudiosFriday, 03 June 2016
“The most interesting characters are initially difficult to like,” proclaims Jesse Eisenberg’s would-be filmmaker protagonist, in case his cringe comedy’s mission statement was otherwise unclear. Ben is an outlandish collage of unlikeable qualities: abusive, misanthropic, arrogant, vicious, self-loathing, needy, and a poor little rich kid. Read more... |
Sunset at the Villa Thalia, National TheatreThursday, 02 June 2016
Greece has had a bad press in recent years. A place that used to conjure up visions of lazy days on sun-soaked islands, with summer food and warm seas, now just reminds us of the migration crisis, bodies in the water and economic collapse. The country is used as an example of the failure of the Euro, and of the iniquity of the IMF. It is a place of poverty, and riots; a symbol of the age of austerity. A basket case; a warning. Read more... |
Sideways, St James TheatreWednesday, 01 June 2016
Alexander Payne’s adored 2004 film adaptation of Rex Pickett’s semi-autobiographical novel didn’t just pick up an Academy Award – it led to a plummeting in sales of Merlot, and Pinot Noir becoming the drink of choice. What might Pickett’s theatrical version accomplish? Read more... |
Brighton Festival: Stella, Theatre RoyalSunday, 29 May 2016
A Victorian transgender celebrity is a fitting and timely subject for this Brighton Festival premiere. Writer-director Neil Bartlett turns Stella’s scandalous life into a stark horror story, marked by the regular, jarring crash of glass which sounds like splintering flashbulbs, mirror images breaking and jabbing at an older man (Richard Cant) whose hand is already slashed and bandaged, as he awaits a fatal knock on the door. Read more... |
The Threepenny Opera, National TheatreFriday, 27 May 2016
Last seen at the National Theatre over 10 years ago, Brecht and Weill’s The Threepenny Opera is back in a new adaptation by Simon Stephens. But looking at Rufus Norris’s epic-theatre-lite production – all exposed stage-mechanics and makeshift sets – and listening to Stephens’s brutal but non-committal text, you’d swear it had never been away. Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet, Garrick TheatreThursday, 26 May 2016
Trouble remembering in which country Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers cross paths? Branagh’s panting paean to Fellini will sort you out. Stylish as a monochromatic Vogue spread, and as self-consciously Italian as Bruno Tonioli guzzling lasagne in a gondola, it’s not exactly a triumph of cultural nuance. Read more... |
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★★★★★
‘A compulsive, involving, emotionally stirring evening – theatre’s answer to a page-turner.’
The Observer, Kate Kellaway
Direct from a sold-out season at Kiln Theatre the five star, hit play, The Son, is now playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre for a strictly limited season.
★★★★★
‘This final part of Florian Zeller’s trilogy is the most powerful of all.’
The Times, Ann Treneman
Written by the internationally acclaimed Florian Zeller (The Father, The Mother), lauded by The Guardian as ‘the most exciting playwright of our time’, The Son is directed by the award-winning Michael Longhurst.
Book by 30 September and get tickets from £15*
with no booking fee.
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