Theatre Reviews
King Charles III, Almeida TheatreFriday, 11 April 2014
The Royal Family: politically irrelevant anachronism? Fodder for tourism? Or enduring symbol of what it means to be British? Mike Bartlett’s shrewd new drama, in a taut, economical and strongly acted production by Rupert Goold, tussles with issues of the limits and shifting values of monarchical power, and with questions of national identity. It has a playfulness that occasionally borders on the glib – yet it also has teeth. Read more... |
Birdland, Royal Court TheatreThursday, 10 April 2014
If rock is magic, then what about its creators? Are they wonderful magicians, or empty charlatans? Infused by the spirit of the Patti Smith song of the same name, playwright Simon Stephens’s new play puts a rock star centre stage — and then lets him implode. Given that he is played by Andrew Scott, one of the most charismatic actors of the British stage, the result is often compelling. Read more... |
The Beautiful Game, Union TheatreThursday, 10 April 2014
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton's musical was first seen in the West End in 2000, where it received mixed reviews and ran for just under a year. In 2009-10, they reworked the show for productions in Canada and South Africa under the title The Boys in the Photograph, and now it receives its first London revival in Union Theatre. Read more... |
Let The Right One In, Apollo TheatreWednesday, 09 April 2014
Flying masonry put the Apollo in the headlines late last year when part of the theatre’s ceiling collapsed; now an airborne vampire and an impressive refurbishment give it new life. A cyclorama of dark tree branches and cloud-scudded skies covers the ongoing repair work overhead. Read more... |
A Small Family Business, National TheatreWednesday, 09 April 2014
Are the 2010s a rerun of the 1980s? You know that familiar feeling of déjà vu: economic collapse, royal wedding and Tories in power. Not to mention privatization and the spirit of rampant capitalism abroad in the land. Surely, these are the ideal conditions for a revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s exposé of entrepreneurial greed, A Small Family Business, at the National, where it premiered in 1987. But does the play’s criticism of dishonesty remain resonant today? Read more... |
Arcadia, Tobacco Factory Theatres, BristolSunday, 06 April 2014
The popularity of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia owes a great deal to the play’s brilliant weave of themes and ideas, outlined by characters from two different historical periods – Romantic and modern. There is breathtaking brio in the way the writer’s skill combines so many strands, with both humour and irony: from the mathematics of Fermat’s theorem to the exploration of fractals, and from the limits of rationalism to the flights of fancy that inhabit science just as much as poetry. Read more... |
Another Country, Trafalgar StudiosFriday, 04 April 2014
I must confess to feeling a warm tremble every time I hear “I Vow to Thee, My Country”, a result of the potent mix of Gustav Holst’s stately music and Cecily Spring Rice’s allusive words. So when Julian Mitchell chose the words “Another Country”, from the poem’s second verse, as the title for his 1981 play, both the name and the story had that wonderful quality of resonance. Read more... |
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Savoy TheatreThursday, 03 April 2014
The “fantasy” Riviera conjured by designer Peter McKintosh for the West End premiere of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - the Musical is pretty much an extension of the Savoy Theatre’s shining Art Deco auditorium, its sleek angular segments gliding into position like they too have been choreographed by director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell. So it looks devilishly good and it smells of money and deception. Read more... |
Eldorado, Arcola TheatreWednesday, 02 April 2014
There is something forensic about Marius von Mayenburg's examination of human nature in this 2004 play, written when he was in his early 30s and the Iraq war still on the television news. Eldorado, a money-making project to rebuild some of the devastated areas of a city - divided, invaded, bombed - is in a long line of ventures undertaken by colonialists and conquerors. Hence its name, reminiscent of European, gold-inspired adventures in South America in the sixteenth century. Read more... |
Much Ado About Nothing, Royal Exchange, ManchesterWednesday, 02 April 2014
Swedish director Maria Aberg, making her Royal Exchange debut, sets Shakespeare's comedy in 1945 post-war Britain and strives to play in the effects of war on the home front, where women are in charge and have taken on men’s roles. The same goes for some of the casting here. Gender-blind casting is apparently a mission of Aberg's, to redress a male bias. 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*
with no booking fee.
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