sun 12/05/2024

Theatre Interviews

Leslie Phillips: 'I can be recognised by my voice alone'

Jasper Rees

Leslie Phillips would have known for half a century that at his death, which was announced yesterday, the obituaries would lead with one thing only. However much serious work he did in the theatre and on screen, he is forever handcuffed to the skirt-chaser he gave us in sundry Carry Ons and Doctor films and London bus movies.

Read more...

‘Stripping naked the process of making theatre’: Martin Crimp talks about his latest play

aleks Sierz

The fictional world is our world, but at the same time it’s another place. We want our writers to invent interesting characters, gripping plots and to take us to unexpected places. We want them to delight us, and sometimes to fright us. We want to immerse ourselves in their inventions, lose ourselves in their fictions, and explore their newly created worlds. But are writers allowed to say anything they want?

Read more...

'The first thing I do when I wake up is write.' Hilary Mantel, 1952-2022

Jasper Rees

Hilary Mantel, who has died at the age of 70, was a maker of literary history. Wolf Hall, an action-packed 650-page brick of a book about the rise and rise of Thomas Cromwell, won the Man Booker Prize in 2009. Three years later its successor, Bring Up the Bodies, became the first sequel ever to win the prize in its 44-year history.

Read more...

'I loved being a dresser': Sir Ronald Harwood, Oscar-winning writer, dies at 85

Jasper Rees

Ronald Harwood, who has died at the age of 85, was best known for his play about tending to the needs of the larger-than-life actor-manager Donald Wolfit.

Read more...

'By the end I’d lost me': Joe Simpson, mountaineer and writer - interview

Jasper Rees

In Peru in 1985, Joe Simpson - then 25 - and his 21-year-old climbing partner Simon Yates were descending the remote Siula Grande, which was hard to get up but even harder to get down, when Simpson broke his leg. They both assumed it was a death sentence, but Yates gave him a couple of paracetamol, dug himself into a bucket seat in the snow and lowered the stricken Simpson down the mountain slope, paying out 300ft of rope, then climbing down and doing it again, and again, for hours.

Read more...

theartsdesk Q&A: Lia Williams on the challenges of theatre

Heather Neill

Lia Williams is not an actor who looks for easy options. Twice she has played two characters in the same production, switching between them for different performances.

Read more...

theartsdesk Q&A: playwright William Nicholson

Heather Neill

It is 30 years since Shadowlands, William Nicholson's much-loved play about CS Lewis's unexpected love affair with Joy Gresham, an American poet, was first seen on stage.

Read more...

10 Questions for actress and playwright Nicôle Lecky

Thomas H Green

Nicôle Lecky’s one woman show Superhoe has added fire to the reputation of an already fast-rising actress and writer.

Read more...

10 Questions for Candice Edmunds of Theatre Company Vox Motus

Thomas H Green

“When we graduated we were seeing lot of theatre as a literary form,” explains Candice Edmunds of the theatre company Vox Motus, “But we were really excited by it as a visual form and everything we make, from our earliest scratch pieces up to Flight, has really been an experimentation into how much we can substitute dialogue and the written word for theatrical visuals.”

Read more...

Robert Hastie: 'a seam of love runs through the play' - interview

Heather Neill

Robert Hastie is a little late for our meeting. Directing Shakespeare's darkest tragedy in London while also running Sheffield Theatres must sometimes cause a logjam of simultaneous demands, but whatever the morning's problem in the north of England, he remains smiling, relaxed, thoughtful and gracious during a break from rehearsals.

Read more...

Pages

Advertising feature

★★★★★

A compulsive, involving, emotionally stirring evening – theatre’s answer to a page-turner.
The Observer, Kate Kellaway

 

Direct from a sold-out season at Kiln Theatre the five star, hit play, The Son, is now playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre for a strictly limited season.

 

★★★★★

This final part of Florian Zeller’s trilogy is the most powerful of all.
The Times, Ann Treneman

 

Written by the internationally acclaimed Florian Zeller (The Father, The Mother), lauded by The Guardian as ‘the most exciting playwright of our time’, The Son is directed by the award-winning Michael Longhurst.

 

Book by 30 September and get tickets from £15*
with no booking fee.


latest in today

Britten Sinfonia, The Marian Consort, Milton Court review -...

Gesualdo was, in the words of New Yorker critic Alex Ross – “irrefutably badass”, a double murderer, sado-masochist and black magic enthusiast who...

Music Reissues Weekly: Little Girls - Valley Songs

The name, Caron and Michelle Maso explained to Los Angeles radio DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, was a literal description. “We’re both like five feet. We...

DVD/Blu-ray: The Holdovers

Glance at The Holdovers’ synopsis and you might suspect that...

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes review - a post-human para...

Planet of the Apes is the most artfully replenished franchise, from the original series’ elegant time-travel loop to the reboot’s rich,...

Sappho, Southwark Playhouse Elephant review - a glitzy celeb...

Who is Sappho? What is she? Not much is known about the...

Gomyo, National Symphony Orchestra, Kuokman, National Concer...

No soloist gets to perform Shostakovich’s colossal First Violin Concerto without mastery of its fearsome technical demands. But not all violinists...

The Winter's Tale, Royal Ballet review - what a story,...

If there is a more striking, more moving, more downright enjoyable way to experience...

Sansara, Manchester Collective, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester...

Manchester Collective have come a long way since their early days of chamber music in dark and dingy Salford basements and former MOT test centres...

Album: Ani DiFranco - Unprecedented Sh!t

Having moved out of her mother’s apartment aged 15 to become “an emancipated minor” and set up her own record label, Righteous Babe, just four...