Theatre Reviews
Seussical the Musical, Arts TheatreMonday, 02 December 2013
With the current nostalgia for all things Dr Seuss, now is surely a good time to treat your little ones to the zany nonsense-rhyme stories as they are bought to life on stage. Kirk Jameson’s production has arrived, courtesy of Sell a Door Theatre Company, at the small West End venue of the Arts Theatre, a quaint, quirky place befitting of a uniquely looney show. Read more... |
Gastronauts, Royal Court Theatre UpstairsSaturday, 30 November 2013
For increasing numbers of people, food is theatre, so what better time to combine the two into the slight, sweet, determinedly socially conscious evening that is Gastronauts? The Royal Court "happening" of sorts is catering to audiences of 60 per show during its sellout run. A devised piece that turns playgoers into diners while also asking them to question the ethics and ethos of food, the show in its questioning impulse seems the perfect antidote to festive-season excess... Read more... |
Jumpers for Goalposts, Bush TheatreFriday, 29 November 2013
You can see why sport makes for good drama: it has competition, conflict and clashes of ego. It delivers a result, and it has a touch of glory. At its best, it can send you out of the theatre singing with joy. Or it can be a bit bathetic. Tom Wells, whose award-winning The Kitchen Sink was at this venue in 2011, returns with another small slice of life, this time about amateur Sunday footballers in Hull. Read more... |
The Culture Show: Vicky Featherstone - All Change at the Royal Court, BBC TwoThursday, 28 November 2013
I guess the BBC can't afford researchers or fact-checkers these days. If they could, perhaps something of substance might have arisen from their vacuous Culture Show profile of Vicky Featherstone, the gifted new artistic director of the Royal Court. Oh, and they have might have got the theatre's actual postcode right (SW1W 8AS, as per the Court website), rather than insisting twice on air that it's in (neighbouring) SW3. Read more... |
Once a Catholic, Tricycle TheatreThursday, 28 November 2013
When Mary J O'Malley's play had its premiere in 1977, it must have seemed quite shocking – vivid descriptions of sex and the male anatomy (albeit only in the minds of boy-obsessed 15-year-old schoolgirls at a convent school), spiteful nuns and the occasional fruity language. Nearly four decades on, though, audiences at Kathy Burke's businesslike production – the first major revival of a play that has become a touring warhorse - wouldn't bat an eyelid at any of this. Read more... |
The Anatomy of Melancholy, OvalhouseThursday, 28 November 2013
The Anatomy of Melancholy (or to give it its full title - The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up) is not a succinct sort of work. Read more... |
Trout Stanley, Southwark PlayhouseSunday, 24 November 2013
Award-winning Toronto-born playwright Claudia Dey is also an advice columnist and here she presents us with three wildly off-the-wall case studies. The twin Ducharme sisters, who share an isolated house in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, are famous for having a shared life marked by tragedy: their triplet died in the birth canal, their mother succumbed to a fever on their twentieth birthday and their father was split in two by lightning on the same day. Read more... |
Lizzie Siddal, Arcola TheatreSaturday, 23 November 2013
Lizzie Siddal, Pre-Raphaelite muse and model for John Everett Millais’ 1852 sensation Ophelia, died a tragic death aged 32 from a laudanum overdose, the Victorian’s opiate of choice to which she had become addicted in her final years. Jeremy Green’s new play explores her relationship with Gabriel Dante Rossetti, who, with Millais and William Holman Hunt, formed the original PRB triumvirate. Read more... |
In the Next Room, St James TheatreFriday, 22 November 2013
Is there a danger that a show can be oversold? Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room sounds innocuous enough — until you read its subtitle: The Vibrator Play. Marketed as the most provocative drama of the year, its theme is female sexuality in the Victorian era, and yes, it’s all about the discovery of the joys of orgasm. Read more... |
Strangers on a Train, Gielgud TheatreWednesday, 20 November 2013
Whether you’re partial to Highsmith or Hitchcock, or both, there’s something deliciously exciting about the prospect of Strangers on a Train. Much of that anticipation lies in the intriguing question of which side of the material this adaptation will fall – with book or film, two very different animals – and curiosity as to the staging. "Hitch" has rather spoiled us for visuals. Or has he? 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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