Genre: Theatre 0
Review: Awake, Gay and Writing a Play
Escaping from a high-control religious group is not as simple as walking away. It is a waking-up process that can take years.
Review: Paved with Gold and Ashes
The TrIangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire New York 1911, told by the women workers who were there
Review: A Mirror
This is a far more ambitious work than Sam Holcroft’s Rules For Living, and grounded in things she’s wished to write for a decade. It’s ingenious, necessary and occasionally at the end needs a tweak more to land. It’s still unmissable.
Review: Brain Hemingway
A blocked playwright with a looming deadline is haunted by the subject of her last failed show: Ernest Hemingway.
Review: Shortlist
Shortlist really must be experienced by anyone who appreciates excellent theatre, brilliant writing or those who simply want a good laugh.
Review: Things Hidden Since The Foundation Of The World
A scintillating play of ideas about the internet and its impact on what we know and how we know it
Review: Bangers
Aria and Clef craft a musical world of wonder and despair in this nostaligic Banger of a play.
Review: ‘I Love You, Now What?’
A wonderfully sad and gut wrenchingly funny three hander about loss and love
Review: Shakespeare in Love
You’ll forget the film; you might even forget any staged version of Lee Hall’s in the West End. The mystery’s in the ensemble, the production, its bewitching leads Lewis Todhunter and Melissa Paris. With Claire Lewis’ direction, Michael James’ music, and Graham Brown’s movement direction to the fore, it’s a mighty reckoning in a little room – seamlessly transferred to an ampitheatre.
Review: The Taming of the Shrew
A slowly evolving, involving reading. Alex Louise can certainly develop this to a full-scale production. She just needs to take care of the script’s truth, though it seems contradictory. Confidence and imagination will soon sort that.
Review: Fergus O’Donnell, Losing the Plot, Rebecca Frew Safe, Bernadette Cremin Painless
Erin Burbridge kept tech sound and lighting effectively sashaying throughout, and tre propsl, particularly in the latter piece, attractive and undistracting. In just three months work, with term-breaks, this course run and directed by Burgess tonight has produced something vital. It needs celebrating and its best work a swift life in full-scale productions.
Review: Declan
A child-like young man scours a hostile town and his imagination trying to find answers to the disappearance of his missing friend, Declan..
Review: WONDER DRUG: A Comedy About Cystic Fibrosis
Charlie Merriman is a gifted performer and story teller, with every part of him used to take us on his quest for the Wonder-Drug
Review: Arc: Amy Rosenthal Birth, Alexis Zegerman Marriage, Craig Ryan Death
This 65 minutes takes you on a traversal of human, not simply Jewish experience, out of all proportion to its length. One of the highlights of the latter dog-days, or as here, the long night of the hamster. Three leading playwrights showcased by Emanate, which in just two years has shown how essential it already is, how indispensable it can become.
Review: Why I stuck a Flare Up My Arse For England
A truly fascinating explanation of an inexplicable act for your country.
Review: 97+
Tomcaintheatre A very worthy piece of theatre on the effects of a tragedy that still resonates today.
Review: Burnt Lavender
Indulgent, decadent, glorious, gorgeous and beautiful anthem to the pride in being yourself.
Review: For Better, For Worse
A decent family drama in the shadow of momentous national decision making.
Review: Family Portrait
A fascinating and beautifully imagined film showing us the value of family, no matter what form.
Review: Chriskirkpatrickmas: A Boy Band Christmas Musical
Even the Grinch Would Enjoy This Blast From the Recent Past
Review: The Effect
It’s as if a decade’s experiment has altered this headlong, mind-rippling play. Returning to the National Theatre after 11 years, Lucy Prebble’s 2012 The Effect directed by Jamie Lloyd now comes out bigger than ever, one of the finest 21st century British plays, questioning identity and emotion under the effect of drugs, placebos, what we imagine ourselves into. What, in fact, the imaginary of love is.
Review: Makeshifts, Realities, Honour Thy Father
Finborough’s absorbing ReDiscovered season continues with a triple-bill of plays directed by Melissa Dunne that after tonight, you might never wish to imagine apart. Of course they should transfer, be far better-known, and at least they’re packed out - grab a ticket if you possibly can. We can be grateful again for Neil McPherson’s curating yet another series of early 20th century revivals.
Review: Kravitz, Cohen, Bernstein and Me
Charming, delightful, and witty, a lovely way to spend an hour with the three "Lennys" through Deb Filler's experiences.
Review: JM Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K
Beautifully adapted, directed, performed and designed - masterful puppetry, poignant and meaningful.
Review: The Brief Life & Mysterious Death of Boris III, King of Bulgaria
King Boris of Bulgaria stands up to Hitler, accompanied by Bulgarian and Jewish folk music.
Review: When We Died
An absorbing one-woman play seamlessly blending physical theatre with a poignant, gut-wrenching narrative
Review: Yippee Ki Yay
Die Hard re-telling, blended with Richard Marsh’s journey into fatherhood : Welcome to the party !
Review: waiting for a train at the bus stop
Captivating, laced with humour but dark and heart-breaking.
Review: Alison Skilbeck’s Uncommon Ground
Six seemingly unconnected lives are brought together during lockdown
Review: Just an Ordinary Lawyer (?) A Play, with Songs
A one hour and a half tour de force covering much of last century’s British-African history cleverly pushed along by important sporting events
Review: The Ruffian on the Stair and Funeral Games
Joe Orton’s The Ruffian on the Stair and Funeral Games come to the Lantern Theatre for four performances. This in-house double bill of one-acters is directed by Daniel Finlay and Mark Burgess respectively. A fitting end to the Lantern’s extraordinary week
Review: Rites of Passage
A new play from two compelling performers, fascinating, moving, and relatable.
Review: Adults
An entertaining farce set in a brothel with quality performances by its three-strong cast
Review: Macbeth
The strangeness of this Macbeth wraps in those three Witches/Murderers plus Seyton, slowly perambulating their trolleys around. The eerie, in Schmool’s sustained chords, remains. The horror, elsewhere.
Review: The Grand Old Opera House Hotel
An absolute blast with gags galore, soaring operatic arias and great performances
Review: Shakespeare in Love
You’ll forget the film; you might even forget any staged version of Lee Hall’s in the West End. The mystery’s in the ensemble, the production, its bewitching leads Lewis Todhunter and Melissa Paris. With Claire Lewis’ direction, Michael James' music, and Graham Brown’s movement direction to the fore, it’s a mighty reckoning in a little room.
Review: Joe & Ken
Most of all, this couple capture the feel of the Orton/Halliwell exchange, the chemistry, the aromatic stink of sex from Craig Myles’ Orton, the sweat and self-disgust of Tino Orsini’s Halliwell. John Dunne’s created an Ortonesque, almost What the Dramatist Saw version of events. Orton might have liked that best. And Halliwell, narrating his own death in Orsini’s delivery, been appeased.
Review: This Is Not A Play (It’s A Pathetic Cry For Help)
A stunning solo performance of an exquisitely intricate script
Review: Spiral
Because she’s almost permanently working as an actor, including in her own work, Abigail Hood doesn’t seem to have attracted the praise other late Millennial writers already have. On this evidence she’s one of the very finest, perhaps the most distinctive. I will go anywhere my budget allows to see a new work by Abigail Hood, and so should you.
Review: Double Bill: Paul Robeson, Suzi of the Dress
No doubting of the power of this double-bill from Kansas. The Paul Robeson is solid gold, the Suzi of the Dress, quicksilver.
Review: When Winston Went to War With the Wireless
An absorbing, layered, superbly entertaining two-and-a-half hours that couldn’t be more relevant. Set against The Motive and the Cue, it also proves how history allows Jack Thorne to be even more versatile than we imagined.
Review: NSFW
A stunning vindication of an underrated early play of Lucy Kirkwood’s. With superb direction and tech, the mostly professional and professionally-trained cast would grace any stage. NVT triumphantly prove NSFW can join the modern canon.
Review: Word-Play
Here though, Rabiah Hussain’s greatest strengths are allied to an excoriating sense of the limits of first language, how it colonises, even destroys mother tongues, and marginalises, even imprisons those who buck the monolinguistic norm. Hussain’s poised for remarkable things.
Review: Cuckoo
Michael Wynne bringing something full circle touches where the floating island of home and family might bring sanctuary, or last refuge before the cuckoos come and kick you out. A must-see, particularly for those who’ve not thought the Royal Court could rock with laughter.
Review: Union
After his breakthrough Rainer, much is expected of Max Wilkinson. Here he dazzles in depth with a fable of the limits of human agency, and conscience. Do see it.
Review: Grenfell: in the words of survivors
Grenfell isn’t quite like any verbatim theatre, and the result’s groundbreaking. If the Dorfman could stage at least one such play a year, verbatim or imaginative, then that’s one legacy of Rufus Norris’ tenure that mustn’t be lost. Outstanding.
Review: Secret Wrapped in Lead/Saicrets Happit in Leid
In an idyllic setting, with a less than idyllic storyline, an astonishing debut from a new company firmly now on the Clydesdale map – a wrunkelt an captivatin wunner.
Review: After All These Years
Giles Cole’s extending from one wistfully comic short to a three-act Chekhovian elegy for the dance of age, is in a defining league of its own.
Review: The Sound of Music
This is a top, not just first-rate cast; a riveting, rethought revival. There’s not a weak link - and some vocal surprises. The end is almost unbearably moving. Some still come over mountains as here, some in small boats. You might not feel the same about something you thought you knew. An outstanding revival.
Review: The Wind and the Rain
An outstanding must-see, and with Dancing at Lughnasa and, to a lesser extent Watch on the Rhine, The Wind and the Rain is the finest 20th century revival I’ve seen this year.
Review: The Madness of George III
Surely the Sarah Mann Company’s finest hour, overcoming the BOAT’s wondrous yet treacherous acoustics – and weather. Alan Bennet’s 1991 The Madness of George III is their most ambitious, most jaw-dropping production. This magnificent revival poses even more urgent questions. A twitch on the thread for all of us.
Review: Then, Now and Next
The Book and Lyrics are peerless for this scale, or indeed anywhere: and we can only look forward to much more from Orton and Robyns. This is a heart-rending, heart-warming piece. Laughter certainly, tears, yes those too. The must-see musical of the summer.
Review: London Assurance
Dazzle might be the name of the hero’s ligging new bestie. But it’s what Dion Boucicault’s London Assurance (1841) directed by Tony Bannister with Jacqui Freeman at LLT is about. Their production though blazes midsummer laughter through dog-days. Leave the night to Shakespeare, this is high noon with a hangover. Worth several Dreams for miles around. Applause and laughter throughout this production - the liveliest I can remember for years – prove it. Do see it.
Review: The Accrington Pals
Actors and director can take pride in mounting this intensely moving play, especially in the sheer flow they all bring to Act Two, blazing an arc of ever-growing tensions. It could carry anywhere. ACT did it some service, and must know it.
Review: Goodbye Jolene
A gentle tribute to singing, its people and touching disabilities that affect us all (in this case one in seven), it’s a major sixth in Siobhan Nicholas’ own augmented chord of plays. If you’re attracted by any of the themes, it’s a must-see, but it’s worth anyone’s 90 minutes.
Review: The Pillowman
‘The greatest 21st century play’ deserves revival, and again after this where something of its lustre might be restored. Till then it abides our question, but question it you should, if not repulsed by true reports of its darkness.
Review: The Swell
An absorbing play, as breathtaking as one of its surfing epiphanies. The Swell will break over your head. Let it. You’ll come up for air changed. A small masterpiece.
Review: Dear England
There’s a sacramental thrill as you enter the NT’s Olivier: both sci-fi and ancient Greek. James Graham Dear England, directed by Rupert Goold, is like that: tackling something seen as almost too sacred, at once transcendent for many; but so impacted by nationalist hubris it’s become sclerotic. We enter the game at a historically pivotal moment. Where English football will never be the same. Outstanding.
