Theatre Reviews
The Rolling Stone, Orange Tree TheatreThursday, 21 January 2016
I’m still pondering the title of Chris Urch’s new play. On the surface it’s clear enough: The Rolling Stone is a weekly newspaper in Uganda that has been notorious for pursuing that country’s anti-gay agenda. In particular, at the beginning of the decade, it started a campaign of publishing the photographs and addresses of those it believed to be homosexual. Read more... |
The Weir, Royal Lyceum Theatre, EdinburghThursday, 21 January 2016
Since its unveiling at London’s Royal Court in 1997, Conor McPherson’s The Weir has become something of a modern classic, notching up dozens of productions worldwide and even winning inclusion in the National Theatre’s list of the 100 most significant plays of the 20th century. It’s also a deceptively simple, unassuming offering – on the face of it, not much even seems to happen. Read more... |
4000 Days, Park TheatreWednesday, 20 January 2016
It is a nightmare scenario: you have an accident that leaves you comatose. You are out of action in hospital for three weeks and then, when you wake up, you gradually realise that you don’t remember anything of the past 10 years. Not three weeks, but 10 years! So what has happened to your life? Read more... |
This Will End Badly, Southwark PlayhouseSaturday, 16 January 2016
You have to admire Rob Hayes’s choice of titles. Although his latest doesn’t quite have the shock value of Awkward Conversations With Animals I’ve Fucked, his 2014 Edinburgh Festival hit, This Will End Badly is certainly full of enough foreboding to wipe any superficially optimistic grin off your face. Read more... |
P’yongyang, Finborough TheatreSaturday, 16 January 2016
Every incarnation of totalitarianism has its own specific mythology, which exists in different forms as it is believed at home and “translated” abroad (or not, in both cases). North Korea surely occupies a special place in any such hierarchy, possibly because we’ve entered the late phase of totalitarian statehood (which seems doubtful), or because the incarnations of third generation dynastic Communism have become so peculiar that they stand out even by the standards of the genre. Read more... |
Grey Gardens, Southwark PlayhouseSunday, 10 January 2016
One of the more unusual Broadway offerings of recent times crosses the Atlantic with considerable style in an Off West End premiere of 2006 New York entry Grey Gardens that punches well above its weight. Read more... |
Guys and Dolls, Savoy TheatreThursday, 07 January 2016
The seemingly eternal British love affair with Guys and Dolls continues apace with the (somewhat recast) transfer to London of the Chichester production from two summers ago, and a more buoyant way to inaugurate the new theatrical year is hard to imagine. Read more... |
Best of 2015: TheatreTuesday, 29 December 2015
Say what you will about London theatre during 2015, and by my reckoning it was a pretty fine year, there certainly was a lot of it. I can't recall a year that brought with it a comparable volume of openings, not least during September and December, this year's pre-Christmas slate of major press nights roughly double the same time period in 2014. And as proof that people were actually attending the stuff on offer, empirical evidence as ever was the best guide. Read more... |
Dr Seuss's The Lorax, Old VicMonday, 21 December 2015
You'll feel guilty for having bothered with a programme after seeing The Lorax, the Dr Seuss adaptation that puts saving the environment centre-stage at the Old Vic just as the recent climate change gathering in Paris has done on the world stage. Full of unimpeachably good intentions, the production is fun and frolicsome up to a point, and sometimes simply bewildering. Read more... |
The Insatiable, Inflatable Candylion, National Theatre WalesSunday, 20 December 2015
While Christmas is the season when traditional theatres trot out the tired clichés of panto, the ever-innovative National Theatre Wales have decided, in their wisdom, to stage a surreal, psychedelic theatre-gig at the Sophia Gardens cricket ground in Cardiff. Read more... |
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‘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*
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