Theatre
David Nice
Not the musical then, worst luck. How timely it would have been to mark Jerry Herman's passing with a celebration of a great achievement. Just how brilliantly the pathos and panache of his score lift Jean Poiret's long-running 1970s farce about a gay couple and their St Tropez drag club having to "straighten up" for family values is only emphasised by this ultimately threadbare adaptation by Simon Callow. Was the French-Italian film as good as those of us who saw it in the early 1980s remember? Having been surprised by the hilarity of another humanising attempt, The Birdcage, with a laugh- Read more ...
theartsdesk
London is the theatre capital of the world, with more than 50 playhouses offering theatrical entertainment. From the mighty National Theatre to the West End, the small powerhouses of the Donmar Warehouse and the Almeida and out to the fringe theatres, it's hard to know which to turn. Our guide is here to help you sort the wheat from the chaff. Below is our selection of the best plays on in London right now, with links to our reviews for further elucidation.Albion, Almeida Theatre ★★★★ Mike Bartlett's play has deepened in accordance with our divisive times. Until 29 FebCollapsible, Bush Read more ...
Veronica Lee
What joy it is to welcome this offshoot of the television series to the West End stage – complete with several of that show's cast, plus a few new additions. Ben Elton has fashioned an original story that picks up in 1605, a decade after where the third series left off (with the death of William Shakespeare's son, Hamnet), and two years into the reign of King James.Will (David Mitchell, on great form as the prolix and self-obsessed playwright) has had a run of duds and now is under pressure to write a hit to save his company of actors from disbandment. His landlady's niece, Kate (the Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Lesley Manville’s thrilling career ascent continues apace with The Visit, which marks American playwright Tony Kushner’s return to the National Theatre following the acclaimed Angels in America revival nearly three years ago. But Manville’s whiplash-smart assuredness in a role that calls for a star and gets one proves one of the few invigorating aspects of a long and spirit-depleting evening. Told across three acts (the second one only 40 minutes) with two intervals, the play fills the National’s largest stage with a huge cast, almost all of whom – Manville Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Queer people of colour face a double discrimination: racism and homophobia. Against this sickness of negation and stupidity one of the best antidotes is a culture of celebration. And in this theatre can play its part. At the Bush, last September, the revival of Jackie Kay's 1986 play, Chiaroscuro, in the form of a gig, injected a heady dose of lively music and poetry into a story about two young black lesbians. Now this venue is staging The High Table, a powerful and moving debut by new playwright Temi Wilkey whose plot revolves around a gay marriage. And it's great!Set in London, Lagos and Read more ...
Matt Wolf
It’s not uncommon for playwrights to begin their careers by writing what they know, to co-opt a frequently quoted precept about authorial inspiration. So it’s among the many fascinations of Leopoldstadt that Tom Stoppard, at the age of 82, should have written his most personal play and also, very possibly (and sadly), his last. Audiences will surely warm to the news that this bustling dynastic tale leading, as its story necessitates, to unimaginable despair and loss is also among Sir Tom’s most accessible, as well: yes, there are a lot of characters to track, and a glance at the family tree Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Caryl Churchill, Britain's best living playwright, is enjoying a spate of high-profile revivals of her classic work. Last year, the National Theatre staged her Top Girls, and an upcoming production of A Number is coming soon to the Bridge Theatre. In the meantime, Far Away, her visionary 2000 play about genocide and the war on terror, arrives at the Donmar Warehouse. Twenty years after its first outing at the Royal Court, when it was staged by Stephen Daldry (didn't he do well?), it is now directed by Lyndsey Turner, who in 2019 reinterpreted Top Girls as a big state-of-the-nation drama in a Read more ...
Heather Neill
Ibsen's Nora slammed the door on her infantilising marriage in 1879 but the sound of it has continued to reverberate down the years. In 2013, Carrie Cracknell directed Hattie Morahan in an award-winning performance at this theatre, last year Tanika Gupta profitably wove her story into that of colonial India at the Lyric, Hammersmith, Robert Icke's Children of Nora is due to open in Amsterdam in April and Samuel Adamson's exploration of relationships in four distinct periods, Wife, at the Kiln last summer, echoed Nora's experience. Jamie Lloyd is scheduled to bring his original touch to Frank Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
There’s such remarkable symbiosis between material and performance in Irish dramatist Margaret Perry’s Collapsible that you wonder how the hour-long monologue will fare in any future incarnation. I don’t know how much Perry had the performer specifically in mind when she wrote the piece, nor whether they developed it together in rehearsal, but the fusion feels total. It transfers to the studio space of the Bush Theatre from last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, where Holahan won The Stage’s Edinburgh Award for her performance.The space at the Bush gives it a poised but fraught intimacy, highlighted Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
The news that the Continuity IRA created a bomb destined for England on Brexit Day has added to the timeliness of this revival of Joseph Crilly’s gut-punching comedy. Set in the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement, it takes a merciless glance at the myths and delusions surrounding small-town Northern Ireland, which are exposed in painful detail following the release of former IRA terrorist, Fra Maline, from prison.One of the most striking aspects of Irish drama is the way in which landscapes and buildings are so strongly steeped in the memories of the lives and conflicts that have played Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Say what you will about The Taming of the Shrew (and you’ll be in good company), but it is one of Shakespeare’s clearest plays. Asked to summarise the action of, say, Richard II or Love’s Labours Lost and you might lose your way somewhere between rival Dukes or intrigues within intrigues, but the marital tussle between Petruchio and his “shrew” of a wife Katherina is –for good or ill – secure. Whatever else director Maria Gaitanidi has done with Shakespeare’s most provocative play here, the overriding impression here is one of confusion. Wrapping unpalatable clarity in abstraction doesn’t Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Is this an angry island? Although the British national character (if there is such a thing) has traditionally been one of reserve, repression and restraint, more recently it has become increasing passionate and full of anger. More a clenched fist shaken in loud defiance, than a teacup raised in mild annoyance. Brexit hasn't helped. It really hasn't. In this new monologue, co-written by Roy Williams and Clint Dyer, the fury of the white working-class man is articulated in rare blaze of insight – like a bulldog caught in oncoming headlights. Staged at the National Theatre, drama's central forum Read more ...