Theatre
Jasper Rees
The transfer this week to the West End of The Weir has reminded theatre-goers of Conor McPherson’s hypnotic powers as a dramatist. In the Donmar's revival of the play you can palpably feel the playwright’s storytelling magic casting its spell all over again as, on a windy evening in a rural Irish pub, character after character unburdens himself - and finally herself - of a supernatural tale.In a way, The Weir - written when he was only 26 - is itself a ghost haunting the playwright’s entire career. It was first performed by the Royal Court in 1997, and was soon being staged all over the Read more ...
Matt Wolf
You don't have to know the difference between Dennis Wise (who is referenced during it) and Ernie Wise (who is not) to be immensely gripped by The Pass, the scorching new Royal Court play that traffics ostensibly in the world of football only to widen out into as corrosive a study in psychic implosion and self-destruction as the London theatre has seen in an age. Factor in a star performance from onetime History Boys student Russell Tovey that this actor's career to this point has in no way suggested, and one finds an early candidate for both the most surprising production of the year and Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Unlike television, with its series of Spooks and Homeland, theatre has more or less ignored the secret services. For reasons of snobbery (thrillers are somehow beneath the interest of young playwrights) or because of playwriting clichés (write what you know is difficult in the secret world, where no one really knows what’s going on), this is a relatively unexplored area. But in the era of Wiki-leaks and Edward Snowden, surely few subjects could be more timely?The story of Ciphers begins with a dead body. Justine, employed by the secret services, is found lifeless, having apparently committed Read more ...
David Benedict
“God,” wrote Stephen Sondheim, “is in the details.” Of course, he didn’t actually coin the phrase but throughout his published collections of lyrics he cites it as one of his three guiding principles. But to witness detail you need to be up close. Last seen on Broadway in the 1,058-seat Barrymore Theatre, Putting It Together felt overblown and strained. In the 312-seat St James Theatre, its strengths – the delights of a deftly interwoven selection of 32 Sondheim songs – leap into focus thanks to a quintet of deliciously detailed performances.Unlike Side By Side by Sondheim, the much copied Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
A candlelit theatre is one thing. A theatre when those candles are so close you could lean in and blow them out, where a good line sets them flickering in gusts of audience laughter is quite another. We’ve been spoilt by the Globe for almost 20 years now, and the novelty of its open-air theatre still feels fresh. With the new, Jacobean-inspired Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (capacity just 340), they have done it again.While the rest of Wanamaker’s opening season gets more experimental and exploratory, the new theatre was launched last night with a classic Jacobean revenge tragedy (and the closest Read more ...
Caroline Crampton
In many ways, the darkness is the most memorable aspect of this production. It's so deep and all-encompassing that your eyes start to play tricks on you, seeing spots of light and shadow where there is only blackness. Because of this, when Lisa Dwan's mouth is slowly illuminated eight feet up on the stage, it's easy to dismiss it at first as just another trick of the dark. The only light in the theatre seems to emanate from the mouth itself, as it begins to gasp before tumbling into the breakneck stream of consciousness monologue that is Beckett's Not I.First performed at the Royal Court by Read more ...
aleks.sierz
There are few things as depressing as whinge drama. But the Anglo-Irish have a reasonable claim to be considered the Republic of Ireland’s forgotten losers. The term means the wealthy Protestant class whose elegant stately homes dotted the landscape while the island was a British colony. But during and after the War of Independence, which ended in 1922, they became a target for the Irish Republican Army. This play looks at how the great historic events of the past impact on different generations of one family.Lady Eliza is the matriarch. She still remembers the night when her ancestral home Read more ...
Caroline Crampton
There is no point during Bloodshot where you can be entirely sure just what you are watching. At times it seems like a straightforward one-man show, with sole cast member Simon Slater charging around wildly in his efforts to bring the multiple characters to life. At others, it's a cabaret, as Slater whips out a saxophone and coaxes forth a few achingly good riffs. Then, there's an impromptu magic show, complete with razor blades to be swallowed and cigarettes that appear behind audience members' ears. Finally, encompassing all these seemingly disparate elements is a gripping whodunnit twined Read more ...
Jasper Rees
The fledgling career of Michael Codron, who has been knighted in the New Year's Honours list at the age of 75, might have ended almost as soon as it began. He embarked on a career as a solo impresario in 1956 and had staged three shows, none of which prospered. Then he went to Cambridge and saw a promising undergraduate revue, written by Bamber Gascoigne. He decided to bring the improbably titled Share My Lettuce to London, recasting it with Kenneth Williams and the then unknown Maggie Smith.The only problem was that he hadn't any money. He went to a music publisher, who agreed to back the Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Playgoers could be forgiven for thinking that they were seeing double during much of 2013. No sooner had you sat through Ian Rickson's dazzling revival of Old Times once before you returned again to watch its peerless pair of actresses, Kristin Scott Thomas and Lia Williams, swap roles. Similarly, Ben Whishaw had barely shed his Peter Pan-related persona as the male half of John Logan's Peter and Alice before lending his whiplash authority to the revival of Jez Butterworth's Mojo. There were multiple Ghosts, Midsummer Night's Dreams and Macbeths, slices of O'Neill esoterica and Read more ...
mark.kidel
“The Little Mermaid”, along with many other classic tales, suffers from having been Disneyfied: Hollywood made sure that the shadows darkening Hans Christian Andersen’s original were softened for family viewing and his ambiguous end replaced by American-style positive closure firmly set in the mainstream comfort zone. Simon Godwin’s production pays homage to panto without being tied to the clichés and steers a sensible path between the pain and suffering evoked by the Danish master and the need for a joyful end in which the young lovers live happily ever after.The show takes a long while to Read more ...
theartsdesk
We at The Arts Desk are as fond as the next person of swans-a-swimming, partridges and pear-trees, not to mention gold rings, but be honest: 'tis already the season to be jolly sick and tired of all those knee-jerk compilations of Slade, sleighbells and Celine Dion's "O Holy Night". Without wishing to audition for the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, it’s time to admit that not everything made in the name of Christmas is of the highest artistic merit. But, it turns out, there’s gold in them there hills – snow-capp'd, natch.Tireless champions of excellence that we are, we’ve raided our memory banks Read more ...