National Theatre
The Amen Corner, National TheatreFriday, 14 June 2013
Oh, how the mighty are fallen. Margaret Alexander (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is a storefront pastor in Harlem who leads her flock with absolutist conviction. No drinking, no smoking - the way to the Lord is through abstinence and clean living, and she... Read more... |
Mission Drift, National TheatreTuesday, 11 June 2013
One of the promises of artistic director Nicholas Hytner when he took the helm of this flagship 10 years ago was to stage new and innovative musicals. His problem, of course, is that these don’t grow on trees. So after the triumph of Jerry Springer... Read more... |
Strange Interlude, National TheatreWednesday, 05 June 2013
“My three men,” declares the deeply compromised heroine of this 1928 experimental drama by Eugene O’Neill. “I am whole.” Nina Leeds – hungry for love, ruthless with her own heart and those of others – burns like the sun at the play’s centre. She is... Read more... |
Olivier Awards 2013: Many Shows Called, Few ChosenMonday, 29 April 2013
The Oliviers consider more than twice the number of productions for their annual awards compared to Broadway's Tonys. But you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise following Sunday night's 37th annual shindig, which divvied up the kudos among... Read more... |
Othello, National TheatreWednesday, 24 April 2013
It’s apt that a drama set among soldiers should be presented with military precision; but corruption, cruelty and perversion can lurk amid the human innards of the machine of war, and in Nicholas Hytner’s well-oiled, impeccably paced production of... Read more... |
Children of the Sun, National TheatreWednesday, 17 April 2013
They’re back, and this time it’s Gorky. Dream team director Howard Davies, translator Andrew Upton, designer Bunny Christie and lighting designer Neil Austin have repeatedly attached tragicomic jump-leads to the unfamiliar (Bulgakov’s The White... Read more... |
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Apollo TheatreWednesday, 13 March 2013
Without wishing to get all Kirstie and Phil about this, theatre, more often than you’d imagine, is about location, location, location. One of the reasons why the National Theatre’s knockout The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time... Read more... |
The Captain of Köpenick, National TheatreWednesday, 06 February 2013
A little man takes on Authority and fails. A little man dons a colourful uniform, complete with boots and spiked helmet, and he becomes Authority. Carl Zuckmayer wrote Der Hauptmann von Köpenick in 1931, two years before Hitler came to power.Wilhelm... Read more... |
Port, National TheatreTuesday, 29 January 2013
Over the past decade or so, Simon Stephens has emerged as one of Britain’s premier playwrights. As well as being a prolific penman, with three volumes of collected plays already in print, he has been tutor on the Royal Court’s Young Writers course... 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... 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... Read more... |
Extract: In Two Minds - Jonathan MillerThursday, 06 December 2012
When I first mentioned to a colleague that I was embarking on a biography of the doctor/director Jonathan Miller, he instantly yelped, “My God, your work’s cut out! The man must have met half the famous names in the twentieth century!"My subsequent... Read more... |
