Theatre Reviews
The Dance of Death, Trafalgar StudiosTuesday, 18 December 2012
It sounds unlikely but The Dance of Death makes the perfect Christmas play. Half a minute with Strindberg's squabbling couple makes the ordinary family row over underdone/overdone turkey seem like a parlour game. Need a reminder that your relatives are rather charming? This is the play for you. Read more... |
Hymn/Cocktail Sticks, National TheatreMonday, 17 December 2012
“You don’t put yourself into what you write, you find yourself there.” It’s a maxim that has guided a writing career that, insect-like, has made itself at home among the lived detritus of autobiography and memoir. In Alan Bennett’s 2001 Hymn and his latest short-play Cocktail Sticks the author sets out in search of himself once more, finding on his quest not only his own history but that of a generation and an age at an ever-increasing remove from our own. Read more... |
Hansel and Gretel, National TheatreFriday, 14 December 2012
’Tis the season to be jolly. ’Tis also the season to dust off the stories of the Grimms and Perrault and present them as drama, sometimes transmogrified into panto. There are sometimes attempts to go back to source and eschew the tawdry delights of transvestite dames, sparkly leotards and lame rhyming couplets. The source, of course, is often really quite frightening. Read more... |
Viva Forever!, Piccadilly TheatreThursday, 13 December 2012
Viva Forever! isn’t the clunker it’s been labelled. It’s also not the thin gruel of the standard West End jukebox musical. The real problem is that it can never be Mamma Mia!, the globe-conquering, ABBA-derived franchise previously devised by its producer Judy Craymer. Read more... |
In the Republic of Happiness, Royal Court TheatreThursday, 13 December 2012
Christmas plays are a seasonal curse of British theatre. But there are alternatives to pantos and Dickens monologues. At the Royal Court Theatre, there is a tradition of more edgy Christmas fare, with plays by outstanding writers such as Joe Penhall, whose Haunted Child was here at the end of last year. Read more... |
Privates on Parade, Noël Coward TheatreTuesday, 11 December 2012
It’s brash, jolly, stuffed with wildly politically incorrect language, double entendres and spoof-laden song and dance. But beneath its brightly painted face, its stockings, suspenders and corsets, its uniforms and bravado, Peter Nichols’ 1977 musical drama is revealed, in a production by Michael Grandage that is as sensitive as it is exuberant, to be both acerbically astute and compassionate. Read more... |
The Arthur Conan Doyle Appreciation Society, Traverse Theatre, EdinburghSaturday, 08 December 2012
What is truth? Is it fixed or fluid, personal or universal? Does it require hard evidence or merely faith? These are the areas of interest poked and prodded in this co-production between the Traverse and Peepolykus, the company which previously brought The Hound of the Baskervilles to the stage. Read more... |
Everyday Maps for Everyday Use, Finborough TheatreFriday, 07 December 2012
Woking and Mars both provide subject matter for cartographers. John, who reckons he’s an achiever, is updating the local A to Z, while Behrooz, once a colleague of John’s, is exhibiting his paintings of the red planet. There’s a neat overlap in their occupations: the Martian invasion in H G Wells’ The War of the Worlds took place on Horsell Common, Woking. Read more... |
Old Money, Hampstead TheatreThursday, 06 December 2012
We never glimpse the source of the old money in Sarah Wooley’s new play, for it’s his funeral that opens proceedings. We will get no sense of the man, or the extent of his wealth, or the way he spent it. The eventual irrelevance of such a specific title typifies a muddled and terribly trite evening. Read more... |
The Bodyguard, Adelphi TheatreThursday, 06 December 2012
It's Academy Award season within the showbiz-centric world of The Bodyguard, but even the greatest of Oscar obsessives - count me among them - would be hard-pressed to toss many a trophy in the direction of the 1992 film or toward the largely stillborn stage musical that it has now spawned. 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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