Theatre Reviews
The American Clock, Old Vic review - Arthur Miller's musical history lesson dragsThursday, 14 February 2019
This year’s unofficial Arthur Miller season – following The Price and ahead of All My Sons at the Old Vic and Death of a Salesman at the Young Vic – now turns to his 1980 work, The American Clock, inspired in part by Miller’s own memories of the 1929 Wall Street Crash and subsequent Great Depression. Read more... |
All About Eve, Noel Coward Theatre review - less a bumpy night than an erratically arresting oneThursday, 14 February 2019
Women spend a lot of time gazing at themselves in the mirror in the Belgian auteur director Ivo van Hove's latest stage-to-screen deconstruction, All About Eve, which is based on one of the most-beloved of all films about the theatre: the 1950 Oscar-winner of the same name. Read more... |
The Price, Wyndham's Theatre review - David Suchet stands supremeTuesday, 12 February 2019
There’s a rather sublime equilibrium to Arthur Miller’s 1968 play between the overwhelmingly heavy weight of history and a sheer life force that somehow functions, against all odds, as its counterbalance. Read more... |
The Good Person of Szechwan, Pushkin Drama Theatre, Barbican review - slick Russian BrechtMonday, 11 February 2019
"In our country the capable man needs luck," belts out Shen Te, the Good Person of Szechwan in the most powerful song of Brecht's epic "parable play" of 1941. Read more... |
Blue, Chapter Arts Centre review - heartbreak in the family homeFriday, 08 February 2019
What's worse than grieving? That all-consuming loss. For those that have experienced it, nothing really comes close. It starts to bug Thomas (Jordan Bernarde, main picture second right) during his visit to the Williams household. Recently bereaved himself, he senses the fragility in the air but no-one seems to give a straight answer. Read more... |
Pinter Seven, Harold Pinter Theatre review - elaborations of anxietyThursday, 07 February 2019
It was back to the very beginning for this final instalment of “Pinter at the Pinter”, with its pairing of A Slight Ache and The Dumb Waiter. Read more... |
Home, I'm Darling, Duke of York's Theatre review - Katherine Parkinson rules the roostThursday, 07 February 2019
The Fifties? They were terrible: bone-cold houses where people huddled round the fireplace for heat, empty Sundays that lasted a month, drawn-out rationing, bread you could build houses with. Read more... |
The Cherry Orchard, Pushkin Drama Theatre, Barbican review - stunning absurdist ChekhovWednesday, 06 February 2019
There is no doubt that this Cherry Orchard, whirled into town by Roman Abramovich from Moscow, is going to be divisive. Read more... |
Beast on the Moon, Finborough Theatre review - drama of familial displacement packs a quiet punchWednesday, 06 February 2019
In the history of early photography in the Middle East, it was the Armenian Christian traders and their descendents who became the pioneers of the new technology. Read more... |
Superhoe, Royal Court review - smart, sassy, and full of feelingTuesday, 05 February 2019
Titles matter: they send out messages. So, in the current #MeToo climate, isn't it a bit provocative that there's a rash of plays with titles which might be seen to offend: The Hoes, Superhoe and, coming soon, Inside Bitch? Not to mention the suggestive Hole. All strong titles, tough and spiky. But maybe not offensive at all. These plays are, after all, all written by women, and nowadays it's not what you say, but who says it that really matters. 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
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Edward II, RSC, Swan Theatre, Stratford review - monarchs, m...
“Don’t put your co-artistic director on the stage, Mrs Harvey,” as Noel Coward once (almost) sang.
Tamara...
BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester re...
Anja Bihlmaier returned to the BBC Philharmonic – for the first time in the Bridgewater Hall as principal guest conductor – with a programme to...
Album: Reg Meuross, Fire & Dust: A Woody Guthrie Story
I come to this album from a week or so spent among the denizens of the New York and Boston...
Music Reissues Weekly: Liverpool Sunset - The City After Mer...
What happens after the spotlight is directed towards another target? In the case of Liverpool and the Merseybeat boom – which, in terms of chart...
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Czech Philharmonic, Bychkov, Barbican re...
Exactly half a century ago, Semyon Bychkov fled the USSR for the United States as he sought to swap tyranny for liberty. Last night, in a world...
Drive to Survive, Season 7, Netflix review - speed, scandal...
Last year’s sixth season of Drive to Survive radiated an air of diminishing returns. It was as though the novelty of its spy-in-the-...
Bonhoeffer review - flawed biopic of a saintly man of courag...
The German theologian, pastor and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a saintly, courageous figure, of major historical...
Matt Forde, Touring review - politics, poo and Viagra
Matt Forde gives a warning: “Don’t heckle the disabled – that’s a hate crime.” What an opener for his latest touring show, The End...
Twiggy review - portrait of a supermodel who branched out
When Twiggy burst on to the scene in 1966, she was a beacon of hope for all flat-chested, short-haired, skinny girls. Of course we couldn’t look...