Theatre Reviews

Ed Byrne, Vaudeville Theatre

Veronica Lee Tuesday, 08 September 2009

It says much for Ed Byrne’s talents as a stand-up that he can make his show Different Class, which he first performed a year ago, feel fresh and current. But with topical gags aplenty - many of which must have been written just hours before he took the stage at the Vaudeville Theatre in London, where is doing a month-long residency - it feels bang up to the minute.

Lolita, National Theatre

Matt Wolf Tuesday, 08 September 2009

Adrian Lyne met controversy in the cinema with it head on, while Vladimir Nabokov's novel prompted one of the resounding Broadway flops of Edward Albee's stage career. (Trust me: I am among the few who caught its 1981 New York run.) So here is Lolita once more, this time filleted and distilled into a one-person show suspended somewhere between a stage reading and an actual play. Call it what you will, the result is mesmerising.

Over There, Royal Court

aleks Sierz Tuesday, 23 June 2009

Why do writers end up parodying themselves? The late Harold Pinter was a case in point: in the 1950s and 1960s, his voice was fresh, his pauses enigmatic and his style delivered the shock of the new. In the 1970s, he played imaginative games with theatre form; in the 1980s, he discovered politics. By the 1990s, his new plays seemed to be parodies of his own style. The dialogues were too Pinteresque, the pauses risible, the form contrived.

Eonnagata, Sylvie Guillem/ Robert LePage/ Russell Maliphant, Sadler’s Wells

Ismene Brown Saturday, 28 February 2009

With five first-magnitude stars in it you're expecting at least a five-star show from Eonnagata, the collaboration between ballerina Sylvie Guillem, theatre director Robert Lepage, choreographer Russell Maliphant, designer Alexander McQueen and lighting genius Michael Hulls - possibly even the Milky Way. But I can't divvy up more than two stars for the result.

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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.