National Theatre
'I’d never written a play as a single action before': David Eldridge on 'Beginning'Saturday, 30 September 2017
My friend, the playwright Robert Holman, says that the writing of a play is always “the product of a moment”. Of course, he’s right, but sometimes you have to pick your moment.In autumn 2015 a TV writing gig hadn’t worked out in the way that I’d... Read more... |
Jane Eyre, National Theatre review - a dynamic treatment that just missesFriday, 29 September 2017
Sometimes you go to the theatre and in the first 10 minutes are convinced that the production is going to smash it, only to find by half time that it’s not. Initial delight gives way to mild irritation, and as a member of the ticket-buying public... Read more... |
Oslo, National Theatre review - informative, gripping and movingTuesday, 19 September 2017
Documentary theatre has a poor reputation. It’s boring in form, boring to look at (all those middle-aged men in suits), and usually only tells you what you already know. It’s journalism without the immediacy of the news. But there are other ways of... Read more... |
Peter Hall: A ReminiscenceTuesday, 12 September 2017
Theatre artist, political agitator, cultural advocate: Sir Peter Hall was all these and more in a career that defies easy encapsulation beyond stating the obvious: we won’t see his like again any time soon. He helped shape my experience and... Read more... |
Follies, National Theatre review - Imelda Staunton equal first in stunning companyThursday, 07 September 2017
Of Sondheim’s half-dozen masterpieces, Follies is the one which sets the bar impossibly high, both for its four principals and in its typically unorthodox dramatic structure. The one-hit showstoppers from within a glittering ensemble come thick and... Read more... |
'The kaleidoscope of an entire lifetime of memories'Thursday, 07 September 2017
When director Bruce Guthrie first gave me the script for Man to Man by Manfred Karge, I was immediately mesmerised by the language, each of the 27 scenes leapt off the page. Some are a few short sentences, other pages long; every one a... Read more... |
The Majority, National Theatre review – a minority interestTuesday, 15 August 2017
A new plague is sweeping British theatre: audience participation. Instead of just sitting back and enjoying the show, your visit to a venue is now likely to involve voting on the guilt or innocence of terror suspects (as in Terror or Blurred Justice... Read more... |
Mosquitoes, National Theatre review - Olivias Colman and Williams dazzle amid dramatic excessThursday, 27 July 2017
There's enough plot for a dozen plays buzzing its way through Mosquitoes, Lucy Kirkwood's play that uses the backdrop of the Large Hadron Collidor (LHC) to chronicle the multiple collisions within a family. Veering off now and then into discussion... Read more... |
Olivia Williams interview: 'Are you on drugs?' 'No I've just spent the day acting'Monday, 24 July 2017
Olivia Williams’s first film was, (in)famously, seen by almost no one. The Postman, Kevin Costner’s expensive futuristic misfire, may have summoned her from the depths of chronic unemployment, but the first time anyone actually clapped eyes on her... Read more... |
Barber Shop Chronicles, National Theatre review - foot-stompingly pleasurableThursday, 08 June 2017
The strapline for this joyful show is: “One day; six cities; a thousand stories.” Allowing for hyperbole, this is just about right. Performance poet Inua Ellams’s new show is set in a handful of cities that stretch across one part of the globe, from... Read more... |
Common, National Theatre review - Anne-Marie Duff fails to igniteWednesday, 07 June 2017
History is a tricky harlot. She is bought and sold, fought for and thrown over, seduced and betrayed – and always at the mercy of the winners. In a general election week, it is hard to deny that still now we are the progeny of the possessive... Read more... |
Salomé, National Theatre review - Yaël Farber’s version is verbose and overblownWednesday, 10 May 2017
Is God female? It says a lot about Yaël Farber’s pompous and overblown new version of this biblical tale at the National Theatre that, near the end of an almighty 110-minute extravaganza, all reason seemed to have vacated my brain, and its empty... Read more... |
