Theatre Reviews
3 Winters, National TheatreThursday, 04 December 2014
The single spacious room that is the central location of Tena Štivičić’s 3 Winters has seen plenty of ghosts. It’s part of an old Zagreb mansion, and through the course of the play witnesses the diverse events of Croatian history of the last 70-odd years played out in miniature. Read more... |
Assassins, Menier Chocolate FactoryTuesday, 02 December 2014
Santa Claus does make it to the Menier Chocolate Factory this Christmas but his name is Sam Byck and he plans to fly a 747 into the White House and “incinerate Dick Nixon”. Read more... |
Visitors, Bush TheatreMonday, 01 December 2014
The Bush is on a roll. Under artistic director Madani Younis, audiences are up, new plays are flowing in and there are plans to build a permanent studio space. Having just staged Radar, its annual festival of new writing, the venue now hosts Barney Norris’s Visitors, his debut play which previously premiered at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham and then had a run at the Arcola earlier this year. Read more... |
Silent Planet, Finborough TheatreSaturday, 29 November 2014
Russian prisoner Gavriil is telling his psychiatrist a story about a strange and frightening dragon who demands a female sacrifice from the local townsfolk every year. When Gavriil gets to the end of his hot-breathed tale, his doctor drily remarks: "Almost hard to believe that Stalin had a problem with it." The time is 1978 and we are in the USSR, a place where fiction is censored, writers are frequently imprisoned and real life is even more fantastical than fiction. Read more... |
Saxon Court, Southwark PlayhouseTuesday, 25 November 2014
Saxon Court joins the growing list of new plays tackling the economic collapse, and while lacking the creative innovation of work like Clare Duffy’s Money: The Game Show at the Bush or Anders Lustgarten’s If You Don’t Let Us Dream, We Won’t Let You Sleep at the Royal Court, Daniel Andersen’s salty, astute debut proves a solid addition to the canon. Read more... |
Piranha Heights, Old Red Lion TheatreMonday, 24 November 2014
Like good wine, some plays improve with age. The first taste is sharp, and tickles the palate; further sips stimulate and impress, but the rich full flavour is only apparent after a few years in the cellar. Such is the case with Piranha Heights, Philip Ridley’s 2008 drama, which has been thrillingly revived by young director Max Barton at the Old Red Lion as the inaugural production of this fringe venue’s new artistic director, Stewart Pringle. Read more... |
God Bless the Child, Royal Court TheatreThursday, 20 November 2014
Much of the recent programming of the Royal Court has flaunted a preference for gimmicky gestures rather than the hard work involved in developing new playwrights. So after its staging of book adaptations, fictional documentaries and monotonous lectures here comes the latest gimmick: a play with a cast of a dozen eight-year-olds. Read more... |
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, National TheatreWednesday, 19 November 2014
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, David Hare's adaptation of Katherine Boo's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, works as both play and portent. Viewed on its own terms, the evening grips throughout in its embrace of the multiple contradictions of contemporary Indian life as here filtered through those existing quite literally off the scrap of that country's gathering economic power. Read more... |
Accolade, St James TheatreTuesday, 18 November 2014
Reclaiming lost plays can be unnecessary indulgence, but Blanche McIntyre’s note-perfect production of Emlyn Williams’ 64-year-old work ushers in the renaissance of a thoroughly modern masterpiece. This progressive examination of ethical relativism, trial by media and the tension between public and private life is so topical as to seem positively clairvoyant, but it’s not just a play of ideas – Accolade is among the year’s most riveting human dramas. Read more... |
White Christmas, Dominion TheatreFriday, 14 November 2014
What ought to be a featherweight holiday confection emerges as a charmless slog in the belated West End bow of White Christmas, a title that at this point in November may induce panic in those playgoers who haven't begun to think about holiday shopping. 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...
Hylozoic/Desires: Salt Cosmologies, Somerset House and The H...
The railways that we built in India may be well known, but I bet...
Album: Jethro Tull - Curious Ruminant
Folk rock has long been one of Jethro Tull’s strongest suits. Ian Anderson’s integration of...
Alterations, National Theatre review - high emotional costs...
Plays about the Windrush Generation are no longer a rarity, but it’s still unusual for revivals of black British classics to get the full...
Uprising, Glyndebourne review - didactic community opera sup...
The score is effective, and rewarding to perform, but derivative. The libretto uses every cliché, or truism, about save-the-planet youth activism...
Music Reissues Weekly: Kraftwerk - Autobahn at 50
“German space rock group is already shooting up the charts with their debut US LP. One of few continental groups able to make this musical mode...
Mahan Esfahani, Wigmore Hall review - shimmering poise and r...
To watch Mahan Esfahani play the harpsichord is to watch a philosopher at work. While...
Album: Architects - The Sky, The Earth & All Between
Brighton metallers Architects have weathered various tribulations in their almost 20-year career. Formed by twins Dan and Tom Searle, after...
Jopy/Lemonsuckr/King of May, Green Door Store, Brighton revi...
There’s something exhilarating about seeing bands right at the very, very dawn of their careers. Will they be headlining the Houston Astrodome in...
Gromes, Hallé, Chauhan, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review...
A cello concerto received its UK premiere in Manchester last night – almost 100 years after it was written. It’s by Maria Herz, a German-Jewish...