thu 24/04/2025

Bush Theatre

The Metamorphosis, Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House

My acid test for whether a show’s worth going to is, specifically, whether it was worth driving 27 miles into town and 27 miles back, spending, say, three or sometimes four hours travelling to see something 80 minutes long. Not often is it worth...

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This Is Where We Got To When You Came In, Bush Theatre

It all started back on Thursday, 6 April, 1972. In the dining room of the less than salubrious Bush Hotel on the corner of Shepherds Bush Green, in a room that had once been Lionel Blair’s studio, the Bush Theatre was born. Over the course of the...

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Bush Theatre: Yorkshire’s Madani Younis gets the top job

Outsider in town: the new artistic director, Madani Younis

Bush watchers — a species of theatre buff with a particular interest in the rapid changes now happening to the Bush Theatre in West London — have been waiting for several weeks to see which of the various rumours are true about who will be the venue...

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Where’s My Seat?, Bush Theatre

Sharp satire in an empty room: Nina Sosanya in ‘Where’s My Seat?’

They say that moving home is always traumatic. So the Bush Theatre in west London must be feeling a wee bit fragile because it has recently upped sticks and taken up residence in the Old Shepherds Bush Library building just around the corner from...

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And the Donmar goes to...

Ending speculation as to who will be the next numero uno at Covent Garden's small but mighty Donmar, Josie Rourke has been announced as artistic director designate of the 250-seater venue; she will accede to the hot seat next January, taking the...

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Moment, Bush Theatre

Thicker than water: Deirdre Donnelly and Ronan Leahy in 'Moment'

At the moment, most of the energy in British new writing seems to be coming from American and Irish playwrights. This is such a regular phenomenon, one that comes around every few years, that it seems idle to speculate on the reasons for it; surely...

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Little Platoons, Bush Theatre

The second play in this venue’s ambitious Schools mini-season is the first drama to tackle the currently contentious subject of Free Schools. While the earlier play, John Donnelly’s The Knowledge, was a powerful account of how a young teacher is...

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The Knowledge, Bush Theatre

At a failing secondary school in Tilbury, Essex, Zoe arrives as an ambitious, newly qualified teacher who hopes to make a difference to her unruly pupils. But although she impresses her learning mentor, Maz, and Harry, the soon-to-retire acting head...

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Bush Theatre to move from pub to library

Shepherd's Bush old library: the Bush Theatre's new home, already the base of a scripts library

London’s world-famous experimental pub-theatre has secured its future with a move into Shepherd’s Bush old library. Church and council permission were given yesterday for conversion of the library (owned by the Church of England) to be ready for...

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My Romantic History, Bush Theatre

Office romance: Iain Robertson in 'My Romantic History'

Let's face it, the rom-com has an image problem. Too often, this genre is tainted by either sugar-sweet sentimentality or crashing cliché, or both. Often, there’s something more than a little oppressive about the whole idea of romance, as if love’s...

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The Aliens, Bush Theatre

You can see the appeal of being a slacker. You don’t work, you just sit around like a cool dude and shoot the breeze; you smoke, you drink, you take drugs, er, lots of drugs. You can call people “man”. Hell, you don’t even need to wear your sneakers...

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Like a Fishbone, Bush Theatre

Sarah Smart (Mother) and Deborah Findlay (Architect): who is best authorised to represent a grieving community?

One of the many absent friends in contemporary British drama is the play that tackles questions of religious belief. At a time when more and more people take their faith more and more seriously, this lacuna at the heart — or should that be soul? —...

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