Bush Theatre
carole.woddis
Sometimes theatre people do mad things. Like stay up all night and the following day to “celebrate” the King James Bible and a theatre’s house-move to new premises. Its 400th year has been a good year for that collection of stories currently being advertised elsewhere as “the book that changed the world”. And for the Bush Theatre's outgoing artistic director Josie Rourke, having moved into John Passmore Edwards’s elegant Victorian Library round the corner from its old Shepherds Bush Green stamping ground this weekend, “There’s no finer act than to open a new theatre - it’s the single most Read more ...
Ismene Brown
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 that. But if it was on in a theatre near you, it would be worth picking up. And so I say for Arthur Pita’s The Metamorphosis.If I lived in London I would not be malcontented to have gone to see it, since Pita is a distinct theatrical talent, rather in Matthew Bourne’s mould, with a showman’s feel for the stage and a considerable skill in entertaining Read more ...
carole.woddis
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 next 39 years, the Bush became a byword for small theatrical miracles.On its stamp-sized stage Victoria Wood met the comparatively unknown young Julie Walters. Stephen Poliakoff, Sharman Macdonald, Jonathan Harvey amongst many others made their stage-writing entrance within its modest portals.Forgive me while I get a little bit slushy here. Memories Read more ...
aleks.sierz
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’s new artistic director when the present chief, Josie Rourke, leaves in December. Yesterday, it was announced that the new artistic director is Madani Younis, which is both a delight and, well, a bit of a surprise.The reason for both these emotions is that Younis — named by the Yorkshire Post as one of the county’s 100 Bright Things in 2009 — is Read more ...
aleks.sierz
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 its historic but rather leaky former home. Yet it’s typical of this spunky venue that it celebrates the first stages of the move with not only a trilogy of short plays, but also with an invitation to the audience to comment on its new space.As an event, Where’s My Seat? is like a housewarming party with the builders still in. Artistic director Josie Read more ...
Matt Wolf
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 reins at a theatre where Rourke first worked just over a decade ago, assisting on shows directed, as it happens, by both her predecessors: Michael Grandage and Sam Mendes.Since that time, Rourke has, of course, spent much of her time running west London's even smaller, not-quite-so mighty Bush, a new writing venue that Rourke later this year will be Read more ...
aleks.sierz
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, it’s enough to welcome another new talent from Ireland? As well as being the artistic director of Tall Tales theatre company, Deirdre Kinahan is a prolific playwright. Her UK debut, Moment, opened last night at the Bush Theatre in west London, and is an engrossing study of a dysfunctional family.Of all the ordeals of modern life, bringing home Read more ...
aleks.sierz
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 blooded in her encounters with a group of unruly kids, the second, by Steve Waters, focuses more on parents, and shows how a fortysomething teacher, Rachel, joins a group of middle-class west Londoners in order to set up a Free School.Rachel is under stress. Martin, her ex, has a new lover, and so he wants to leave London and move into the countryside Read more ...
aleks.sierz
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, she gradually gets into an emotional tangle. Neither her attractive manner, nor her will to succeed, nor her teaching skills are able to prevent her from making some bad mistakes: she wants to be friends with her pupils; she sleeps with Maz; she overplays her hand, in both classroom and staffroom.As the impeccably plotted story — which spans one Read more ...
Ismene Brown
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 curtain-up in 2011 when the lease on the Bush’s space in O’Neill’s pub, Shepherd’s Bush Green, expires.The theatre established links with the library last year when it set up a script library asking publishers to donate play texts - now running to hundreds of volumes. It’s taken 18 months of negotiating with Hammersmith and Fulham Council to find a Read more ...
aleks.sierz
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 natural idealism is too weak to withstand a cold dose of reality. But there are exceptions. And this show is one of them. It’s great to be able to welcome D C Jackson’s new play, which he calls a “non-rom-com”, and which arrives in London having first enjoyed a successful outing at the Edinburgh Festival in August.We start off in the land of the Read more ...
aleks.sierz
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 all day - just kick them off and go barefoot. Only one problem: emotional commitment is a big no, no. American playwright Annie Baker’s new play, which opened at the Bush Theatre last night, takes a long calm look at slackerdom’s highs and lows.Thirtysomethings KJ and Jasper are committed slackers. They spend hours just chatting in a yard at the Read more ...