National Theatre
Home, I'm Darling, Duke of York's Theatre review - Katherine Parkinson rules the roostThursday, 07 February 2019
The Fifties? They were terrible: bone-cold houses where people huddled round the fireplace for heat, empty Sundays that lasted a month, drawn-out rationing, bread you could build houses with. It was all making do and mending and "grey meat, grey... Read more... |
When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, Dorfman Theatre review - Cate Blanchett's underwhelming debut at the NationalThursday, 24 January 2019
When it was announced that Cate Blanchett was making her National Theatre debut with Martin's Crimp's new play, When We have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, its website exploded with people wishing to buy tickets. To those many thousands... Read more... |
Best of 2018: TheatreSunday, 30 December 2018
Will pride of place amongst theatre productions every year go in perpetuity to the work of Stephen Sondheim? One might be tempted to think so given the preeminence during 2017 of Dominic Cooke's breathtaking revival of Follies (due back in the... Read more... |
The Tell-Tale Heart, National Theatre review - bloody good fun as well as bloodyMonday, 17 December 2018
The Tell-Tale Heart may be the title of an 1843 short story by Edgar Allen Poe, but rest assured that Anthony Neilson's adaptation of it for the National contains this theatre maverick's signature throughout. To be sure, the play charts a Poe-esque... Read more... |
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Piccadilly Theatre review - back for a heart-tugging encoreFriday, 14 December 2018
One emotional high point in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the much-lauded Simon Stephens adaptation that is back in our midst once more, comes when the teenage Christopher Boone is floated in the air as part of his dream of... Read more... |
Nine Night, Trafalgar Studios review - hilarity and heartbreakFriday, 07 December 2018
This is Natasha Gordon’s first play, and in it she has created an entire world. A world of grief and laughter, conflict and closeness. A world that is very specifically located within Britain's Jamaican community, yet one whose themes of loss and... Read more... |
Hadestown, National Theatre review - new folk musical is hotter than hellWednesday, 14 November 2018
The road to full musical theatre production has been a long one for Hadestown. It began back in 2006, with Anaïs Mitchell’s song cycle – a folk/jazz take on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth – toured around Vermont in a school bus, then grew into an... Read more... |
War Horse, National Theatre review - still touching after all these yearsTuesday, 13 November 2018
War Horse at the National Theatre on Sunday’s Armistice Day centenary: there were medalled veterans and at least one priest in the rows in front, dark suits and poppies all around, and scarcely a youngster in sight. When the bells rang out in a... Read more... |
Dramatic Exchanges review - a brilliant slice of theatre historySunday, 11 November 2018
Dramatic Exchanges is a dazzling array of correspondence, stretching over more than a century, between National Theatre people. It’s a chronologically arranged anthology that acts as a history of the institution, from its appearance as an idea... Read more... |
Stories, National Theatre review - comic conception capersThursday, 18 October 2018
In 2017, playwright Nina Raine's Consent, an excellent National Theatre play about lawyers and rape victims, was hugely successful, winning a West End transfer, as well as generating a lot of discussion about gender politics. Her follow up, Stories... Read more... |
I'm Not Running, National Theatre review - puzzling political dramaWednesday, 10 October 2018
Whatever you might think about Brexit, the dreaded B word, the current climate certainly seems to be reinvigorating both feminist playwrights and political playwrights. So welcome back, David Hare, the go-to dramatist for any artistic director... Read more... |
Antony and Cleopatra, National Theatre review - Ralph Fiennes in marvellous throttleThursday, 27 September 2018
You always wonder about those final scenes of Shakespeare’s tragedies. Are they really needed dramatically; do they work? We understand, of course, that a closing exhalation may add impact to high passions just witnessed. But is it just a romantic... Read more... |
