National Theatre
10 Questions for Playwright James GrahamTuesday, 29 November 2016
Coalitions make for drama, and for comedy. We know that from, respectively, Borgen and the final series of The Thick of It. It is little wonder therefore that soon after the 2010 election delivered a hung Parliament, the National Theatre... Read more... |
Amadeus, National TheatreFriday, 28 October 2016
Populist playwright Peter Shaffer, who died in June, gets a rapid honour from this flagship venue, which – aptly enough – is putting on his most popular play. So popular in fact that it has already sold out and is therefore critic-proof. Directed by... Read more... |
A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer, National TheatreFriday, 21 October 2016
Some have responded to the very notion of a musical about cancer as if the idea itself were breaking some unwritten code of what is permissible to put on stage – which seems a bit rich given that the same genre has accommodated pieces about AIDS (... Read more... |
The Red Barn, National TheatreTuesday, 18 October 2016
At first, I was a bit confused by the play’s title. After all, David Hare gave his 1998 adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde the moniker of The Blue Room, which coincidentally is the same title as Mathieu Amalric’s very recent adaptation of a... Read more... |
Young Chekhov, National TheatreThursday, 04 August 2016
"Yes, from life," Nikolai Ivanov (Geoffrey Streatfeild) says in passing of a painting midway through the early Chekhov play that bears his name. But the phrase could serve as the abiding achievement of the largely thrilling triptych of plays that... Read more... |
The Deep Blue Sea, National TheatreThursday, 09 June 2016
From being the Aunt Sally of contemporary British theatre, attacked by the angry young men in the 1950s and the new wave of social and political realists for three decades after that, playwright Terence Rattigan is now well and truly rehabilitated.... Read more... |
The Threepenny Opera, National TheatreFriday, 27 May 2016
Last seen at the National Theatre over 10 years ago, Brecht and Weill’s The Threepenny Opera is back in a new adaptation by Simon Stephens. But looking at Rufus Norris’s epic-theatre-lite production – all exposed stage-mechanics and makeshift sets... Read more... |
Another World: Losing Our Children to Islamic State, National TheatreSaturday, 16 April 2016
Why do young British Muslims go to join the so-called Islamic State? Since the entire media has been grappling with this question for ages now, it is a bit puzzling to see our flagship National Theatre giving the subject an airing, especially as... Read more... |
Les Blancs, National TheatreFriday, 01 April 2016
Lorraine Hansberry’s career as a playwright proved tragically short. A Raisin in the Sun is by some distance her best-known work, a key piece about the African American post-war experience. But she thought Les Blancs (The Whites) was potentially her... Read more... |
Brighton Festival: 1967 and All ThatFriday, 01 April 2016
With the 50th Brighton Festival taking place this year, Festival CEO Andrew Comben meets theartsdesk for a chat about the original 1967 event, and its relationship with this year’s Festival. Comben has been the Brighton Festival's overall manager... Read more... |
People, Places & Things, Wyndham's TheatreThursday, 24 March 2016
Recovery depends on honesty, but Emma – not her real name – lies for a living. Duncan Macmillan’s searing play, getting a well-deserved West End transfer from the National, complicates the familiar story of addiction and rehab by making its... Read more... |
The Solid Life of Sugar Water, National TheatreTuesday, 01 March 2016
Hurray, the two-part epic wizard-fest Harry Potter and the Cursed Child lands in the West End this summer, and its playwright is the ever-versatile Jack Thorne (who also successfully adapted the vampire romance Let the Right One In for the stage).... Read more... |
