Theatre
Robert Beale
Ivo van Hove’s reputation precedes his work as a rumble of thunder goes before a storm. The Manchester International Festival, intensely proud to have on board the man some see as the most original theatre director around, has presented the UK premiere of his 2014 show The Fountainhead, even as memories are fresh in the mind of Van Hove's West End All About Eve and The Damned at the Barbican and he gears up for a major new Broadway revival at the end of the year of West Side Story.First seen at Van Hove's home base on the continent just over five years ago, this is a marathon of a Read more ...
David Nice
Two years ago Ermanna Montanari and Marco Martinelli, the visionary partners who have powered Ravenna's revolutionary Teatro delle Albe since 1986, led local people and international visitors down through the circles of Dante's Inferno. In 2021, the 700th anniversary of the greatest Italian poet's birth, they will take us into the presence of God. This year’s Ravenna Festival special dealt with the most human of the three canticles, the central meditation and dramatisation of sharing and getting the chance to begin again. It concludes with the earthly paradise where Dante is reunited with Read more ...
David Nice
Like Hamlet and both parts of Goethe's Faust, with which it shares the highest peak of poetic drama, Ibsen's Peer Gynt is very long, timeless enough to resonate in a contemporary setting and sufficiently ambiguous in its mythic treatment of the pursuit of self to take a wide variety of interpretations. David Hare's adaptation, moving between Scotland, Florida and Africa, finds its own nuanced language to mix with contemporary colloqualisms but hardly marks a radical break from the Norwegian master; so much the better. His Peter Gynt keeps so many possibilities fully in play and is a gift for Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Better than the 2001 film but likely to disappoint devotees of the book, Captain Corelli's Mandolin onstage works best as a reminder of the identifiable stagecraft of its director, Melly Still. Playful, non-literal, and often endearingly physical (the human goat all but steals the show), Still's approach to this tale of love during wartime overrides a reductive and sometimes comically cliché script from Rona Munro full of lusty Italians singing Verdi and the like. As summer filler at a playhouse devoted for most of the last year to Harold Pinter, one could do a lot worse, and the Read more ...
Saskia Baron
The intense relationship between a single parent and a single child is ramped up to its highest level when it involves a mother whose daughter has learning disabilities. From that dynamic, writer Ben Weatherill has crafted a warm, engaging and moving play about Kelly and her mum Agnes. We meet them on their daily walk along the beach in Skegness, poking at a dead crab and discussing what to wear to work. When Kelly (Sarah Gordy) takes too long fussing with her trainers, Agnes (Penny Layden) goes to help her and is met with "I’m 27-years-old, I can put my own shoes on", but she can’ Read more ...
Marianka Swain
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s 1970 musical had a heavenly resurrection at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre three years ago, with an encore run the following summer. It’s soon heading off on a US tour, but first there’s another chance for British audiences to catch this miraculous stripped-down revival at the Barbican.Director Timothy Sheader blasts the cobwebs off this sung-through rock opera by making it a pertinent portrait of celebrity and fanatical fandom, while nodding to its concert origins via a gig-like setting. Strumming an acoustic guitar, Jesus (Robert Tripolino) has the Read more ...
aleks.sierz
Few theatres have done as much to promote new young talent as the Royal Court; few theatres have done as much to stage plays about the pains and pleasures of the digital world; few venues have tackled the themes of race and gender in contemporary society more effectively. Now, once again, it's time for a young writer to make their debut in the upstairs studio space. Step forward Jasmine Lee-Jones, whose new play, Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, has an arresting title, and has been advertised as an exploration of "cultural appropriation, queerness, friendship between womxn and the Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Time hasn't necessarily been kind to this slow-aborning West End transfer of a show first seen (and lauded) in its 2015 debut in Leicester and then again two years later for a summer run at the Menier Chocolate Factory. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 has now reached the West End, and the obvious question is who is this musical version of the ever-popular Sue Townsend books for? It's difficult to imagine overly many of the Adrian Moles of today (or even their parents) latching on to jokes about Dallas or Elizabeth Taylor, and the retrograde sexual politics – "shut your Read more ...
Matt Wolf
An apocalyptic title proves somewhat of a red herring for a slight if intriguing play that returns the dream team behind Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to their erstwhile stomping ground at the Royal Court. Set across 20 years in the Newbury kitchen of a socialist family most of whom on this evidence cannot cook, Jack Thorne's play traces a familial and political bequest that takes us from the arrival of Tony Blair as PM through to the spring of 2017 and a lone reference in passing to "Brexit Britain". But quite what the author and his longtime director, John Tiffany, want us to make of a Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
This lovingly lo-tech visit to galaxies far far away is a curious proposition, which, while neither dark, nor sublime, does have its moments. Framed as a tribute to Seventies sci-fi in all its polyester-clad absurdity, it in fact reveals itself to be an exploration of the parallel emotional worlds we all inhabit, with hat-tips to Star Trek and Blake 7 along the way.Dark Sublime, running downstairs at the Trafalgar Studios, is the first play by the writer Michael Dennis, and has scored itself a considerable coup in persuading Star Trek’s Counsellor Deanna Troi, Marina Sirtis, to Read more ...
Veronica Lee
Michael Frayn's Noises Off is a modern classic, a backstage sex farce that pokes affectionate fun at a profession he loves. And now Jeremy Herrin, one of our most accomplished directors, revives it for Lyric Hammersmith, where the play was premiered in 1982. He also directed a production in 2016 on Broadway, so this is his second bite of the cherry.At the press night, the theatre gods appeared to be in on the fun when, two hours in, the lights failed and a member of the crew came on stage to tell the audience there was a technical hitch in this play within a play, and there was a short delay Read more ...
Damian Cruden
How we deliver culture in the modern day is complex. There are many misconceptions about where and who is capable of leading the nation’s cultural charge. The accepted conceit is that if culture doesn’t emanate from certain places, like London or Stratford, then it couldn’t possibly be of value. By way of response, Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre brings affordable, high-quality culture to audiences outside the M25. It promises an immersive experience, accessible to all and undeniably great fun. The artists creating the work have all had a wide range of experience gained in the major arts Read more ...