Royal Court
Cleansed, National TheatreWednesday, 24 February 2016
Although everyone agrees that Sarah Kane was one of the most influential British playwrights of the 1990s, revivals of her work have been few and far between. Now, at last, some 17 years after her suicide at the age of 28 in 1999, our flagship... Read more... |
Yen, Royal Court TheatreTuesday, 26 January 2016
Feral kids are a media stereotype, but they make good strong subjects for drama. In Anna Jordan’s new play, which was first seen at the Manchester Royal Exchange last year after winning the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2013, we are introduced... Read more... |
Best of 2015: TheatreTuesday, 29 December 2015
Say what you will about London theatre during 2015, and by my reckoning it was a pretty fine year, there certainly was a lot of it. I can't recall a year that brought with it a comparable volume of openings, not least during September and December,... Read more... |
You for Me for You, Royal Court TheatreWednesday, 09 December 2015
North Korea is the kind of place that haunts the imagination of the West – and not in a good way. One of the last hardline Communist dictatorships, it is also a country of immense sadness, a landscape of food shortages and human-rights abuses. Yet... Read more... |
Linda, Royal Court TheatreWednesday, 02 December 2015
Don’t you just love celebrity hype? Kim Cattrall’s name alone sold out this show, which runs over the notoriously difficult Christmas period. But sometimes star-casting backfires, and when she had to withdraw from the production for medical reasons... Read more... |
Plaques and Tangles, Royal Court TheatreWednesday, 21 October 2015
Once upon a time, quite recently, you couldn’t move for plays about youth. Now, there’s been an avalanche of dramas about ageing, usually in the context of dementia and family life. Maybe all of our main playwrights have suddenly grown up, or maybe... Read more... |
Hangmen, Royal Court TheatreSaturday, 19 September 2015
Welcome back Martin McDonagh. It’s been more than 10 years since you’ve had a play on in London, and I was beginning to think that we had lost you to Broadway, and Hollywood, for ever. As you know, I loved it when your Leenane Trilogy burst onto our... Read more... |
Lela & Co, Royal Court TheatreThursday, 10 September 2015
When is a monologue not quite a monologue? When it is interrupted by another voice, one that contradicts and argues with it. In Cordelia Lynn’s Lela & Co, her Royal Court debut which is effectively and savagely staged in the claustrophobic heat... Read more... |
Listed: Precocious WritersSaturday, 18 July 2015
Once upon a time... Storytelling is an integral part of all human cultures, and a central pillar of an enlightened education. Some children get the hang of it quickly – they are, as the phrase has it, natural storytellers. This week the Royal Court... Read more... |
Constellations, Trafalgar StudiosWednesday, 15 July 2015
Life, the universe and everything… in 70 minutes. You certainly can’t fault Nick Payne’s ambition, nor help but admire the dazzling inventiveness of his theoretical physics romcom with a side helping of artisanal beekeeping.This 2012 Royal Court hit... Read more... |
Orson's Shadow, Southwark PlayhouseTuesday, 07 July 2015
The latest transatlantic transfer is curiously esoteric, concerning as it does an obscure period in the lives of two great men: Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles. The centenary of the latter’s birth makes this an apt moment for the European premiere... Read more... |
Hang, Royal Court TheatreWednesday, 17 June 2015
One of the most talented playwrights to emerge in the 2000s, debbie tucker green is a law unto herself. The best word to describe her is uncompromising. When I interviewed her in 2003 she refused pointblank to answer any questions about her West... Read more... |
