Hampstead Theatre
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... Read more... |
Blue Sky, Hampstead DownstairsSunday, 28 October 2012
Set at the start of the US and UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, Clare Bayley's Blue Sky follows an old-school journalist pursuing justice at the cost of neighbours and friends. Jane, played with careerist resolve by Sarah Malin, is convinced... Read more... |
55 Days, Hampstead TheatreThursday, 25 October 2012
In the past few years, without any fanfare, the veteran playwright and Spooks script-writer Howard Brenton has not only made a comeback, but also become the chief chronicler of the nation’s past. One year he is telling the story of Harold Macmillan... Read more... |
Chariots of Fire, Gielgud TheatreWednesday, 23 May 2012
As the Olympic Park rises out of the desolation of East London, British theatre is also being regenerated by the sports fest that looms increasingly large on the horizon. Although it has recently lost its local authority funding, Edward Hall’s Swiss... Read more... |
Jakob Lenz, ENO, Hampstead TheatreWednesday, 18 April 2012
Forget opera-glasses, the must-have accessory for the contemporary opera-goer in London is fast becoming a sturdy pair of wellingtons. No sooner had we all dried off from our voyage into The Heart of Darkness at the Royal Opera House (where Edward... Read more... |
Farewell to the Theatre, Hampstead TheatreThursday, 08 March 2012
Harley Granville Barker is hardly a household name, but he was a huge influence on British theatre today. During the Edwardian era, he promoted new writing at the Royal Court; he wrote plays such as The Voysey Inheritance, Waste and The Madras House... Read more... |
The Trial of Ubu, Hampstead TheatreWednesday, 25 January 2012
Some theatre openings will be legendary for all time. One such was the Parisian evening of 10 December 1896 when Alfred Jarry’s character Père Ubu stepped onto the stage at the Théâtre de l’Oeuvre and intoned “Merdre!” (roughly translated as Shittr... Read more... |
Herding Cats, Hampstead TheatreMonday, 12 December 2011
Loneliness is hard to put on stage. There is something about the feeling of unwanted urban solitude which is so repetitive and, let’s face it, boring, that writing a play about it risks sending the audience into the night before the story is... Read more... |
The Last of the Duchess, Hampstead TheatreThursday, 27 October 2011
Is it nostalgic to constantly revisit the history of the royal family? In this new play by Nicholas Wright, which opened last night, we travel back in time to 1980 when the aged Wallis Simpson - widow of the abdicated King Edward VIII - lived as a... Read more... |
No Naughty Bits, Hampstead TheatreTuesday, 13 September 2011
You could call it the BBC Four effect. It’s fact-based fictions set in the past, more often than not about the absurdities of sexual mores or other changing customs. In the latest theatrical example, Steve Thompson’s new play - which opened last... Read more... |
Loyalty, Hampstead TheatreThursday, 21 July 2011
Can journalists write good plays? Sarah Helm has been a Washington correspondent for The Independent during the first Gulf War in 1990, reported from Baghdad in the mid-1990s, and was based in Jerusalem for three years. So her debut play about the... Read more... |
Shakespeare Double Bill, Propeller, Hampstead TheatreSunday, 26 June 2011
As further proof that Shakespeare plays come these days not as single spies but in battalions, the London leg of the all-male Propeller ensemble's lengthy tour has pitched up in the capital in time to deliver their Richard III within days of Kevin... Read more... |
