Author:

Mark Shenton in south London 8 April 2024 The late Kevin Elyot wrote only a handful of plays, but they

Simon Jenner in west London 8 April 2024 This is the purest theatre I’ve seen at the Royal Court in

Simon Jenner on the South Bank 8th April 2024 “This … is not about me,” Charlotte Brontë (Gemma Whelan) keeps

Tom Bolton in north London 8 April 2024 “Make Mine a Double”, the Park Theatre’s initiative to get more early

Jeremy Malies in south-east London 4 April 2024 “They wouldn’t have lasted a day in the Sixties!” For me, it’s

Mark Shenton in the West End 1 April 2024 Known as the “King of Pop”, Michael Jackson has cast a

Simon Thomas in the South West 1 April 2024 Premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre in

Simon Jenner in north London 30 March 2024 April De Angelis is back tackling a subject at which she often

Jeremy Malies in West London 28 March 2024 “I always knew when nothing was going to happen.” Frank Hardy, the

Mark Shenton in the West End 27 March 2024 “You gotta make magic out of tragic,” we are repeatedly told

Neil Dowden in the West End 26 March 2024 Tyrell Williams won a clutch of awards for most promising playwright

Glenda Frank on Broadway 24 March 2024 “Sex.” “Scandal”. These words snag our attention. Other words stimulate the imagination –

Mark Shenton in the West End 24 March 2024 Why are nuns so irreverently and inherently funny, at least for

Yann Messager reports from 6th arrondissement February 2024 How does one wrap one’s head around the idea of suffering? To

Tom Bolton in south London 18 March 2023 As Figs in Wigs point out, it takes a lot of development

Mark Shenton in the West End 15 March 2024 Philip Brugglestein, Harry Clarke’s lonely narrator and fabulist who invents an

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 13 March 2024 Tim Price’s new play Nye is an entertaining if episodic portrait

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 8 March 2024 Harold Pinter used to banter with friends by quoting bizarre moments

Robert Schneider in New Haven, Connecticut 4 March 2024 Productions of this wonderful play abound internationally. Chichester Festival Theatre (UK)

Jeremy Malies in the West End 5 March 2024 I had been transfixed for much of it, transported through three

Neil Dowden in the West End 4 March 2024 Lucy Kirkwood’s ambitious new play The Human Body packs in a

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 1 March 2024 German playwright Marius von Mayenburg’s 2022 work Nachtland (here given its

Mark Shenton in south London 28 February 2024 With the ever-alarming rise of the threats of fascism and antisemitism around

Mark Shenton in east London 24 February 2024 When the original 2004 production of The Big Life transferred from the

Neil Dowden in the West End 23 February 2024 In its satire of political corruption and media bias, Ibsen’s 1882

Mark Shenton in the West End 22 February 2024 Like The Who’s Tommy, which began its rock-opera life as a

Neil Dowden in north London 21 February 2024 John Logan’s fascinating new play Double Feature is a close-up view of

Yann Messager in Paris 19 February 2024 Simon Stone’s Traviata, with gripping musical direction by Giacomo Sagripanti, is a grandiose

Glenda Frank in Manhattan 19 February 2024 We slip into Days of Wine and Roses — now at Studio 54

Jane Edwardes on the South Bank 19 February 2024 It is difficult to approach the National Theatre’s revival of Dodie

Jeremy Malies in Hove 14 February 2024 They say only organists go to organ concerts. Whether audience members who surrounded

Mark Shenton on the South Bank 14 February 2024 Jukebox musicals have become the lazy bane – or easy balm,

Neil Dowden in west London 11 February 2024 Frantic Assembly’s first new commission since the pandemic is an adaptation by

Simon Thomas in the South West 10 February 2024 The origins of the legend of Bluebeard, the serial wife-killer, are not

Jeremy Malies in the West End 10 February 2024 Write Jerusalem – which many people consider to be the best

Dana Rufolo in Antwerp February 2024 Imagine you are not on this earth and yet you are in a theatre,

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin January 2024 The staging history of Yasmina Reza’s Trois versions de la vie (literally: Three Versions

Robert Schneider in Connecticut 4 February 2024 Nearly every day brings us traumatic news from distant parts of the globe: bombardments

Jane Edwardes on the South Bank 4 February  2024 Wedding days that are joyful and run smoothly are hardly likely

Glenda Frank in New York After a banner run Off Broadway and 2022 Drama Desk awards for outstanding play as

Dana Rufolo in Luxembourg We choose to remain blissfully unaware of the fact that life as we know it would

Jeremy Malies in east London 28 January 2024 One of the many merits of Last Rites performed by Ramesh Meyyappan

Dana Rufolo in Luxembourg I went to the Grand Théâtre in Luxembourg City on Saturday evening 14 January 2024 to

Dana Rufolo The most brilliant, dramatic and beautiful performance I have had the privilege to see in a long time

Tom Bolton on the South Bank 20 January 2024 Founded in 2001, Gecko Theatre are a collective with an unmistakable

Tom Bolton in west London 19 January 2024 Transferring from Stratford-upon-Avon, Charlie Josephine’s queer fantasy Western Cowbois breezes into town

Simon Jenner in the West End 12 January 2024 Paul Unwin’s The Enfield Haunting – about the alleged supernatural incidents

Robert Schneider in New Haven, Connecticut 10 January 2024 It’s comparatively rare that a dramatist hatches a work that neatly

Dana Rufolo in Brussels Milo Rau, Swiss-born director of the theatre company NTGent in Ghent, Belgium, is no stranger to

Neil Dowden in west London 20 December 2023 Riverside Studios have a hot ticket (with a top price of £175,

Jane Edwardes in the West End 19 December 2023 It was clear going into the Phoenix Theatre on the second

Jeremy Malies in north London 18 December 2023 Cold War is an adaptation by Conor McPherson of Paweł Pawlikowski’s 2018

Neil Dowden in north London 16 December 2023 The Cold War is back this winter – at least in north

Mark Shenton in the West End 15 December 2023 Peter Pan, of course, is famously the boy who refuses to

Jeremy Malies in south-east London 12 December 2023 A novitiate who only recently came under the spell, I am now

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 11 December 2023 Matthew Dunster’s compelling revival of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming opens in

Simon Thomas in the South West 10 December 2023 An opera staged at Bath’s Ustinov Studio is always going to

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 4 December 2023 The new production at the National Theatre of The House of

Simon Jenner on the South Bank 2 December 2023 “It’s very weird and great.” A woman is trying to read

Yann Messager reports from the 6th arrondissement Stéphane Braunschweig’s “Andromaque” at the Théâtre de l’Odéon is a grand and harrowing performance

Mark Shenton on the South Bank 27 November 2023 Every year theatres up and down the land chase the holy

Jeremy Malies in west London 26 November 2023 “I wonder why London cannot keep its own fools at home!” is

Jane Edwardes on the South Bank 24 November 2023 It is well known that the first performances of Ibsen’s play

Yann Messager reports from Ile-de-France 23 November 2023 Astrid Bayiha’s latest creation, “M comme Médée,” is a tediously self-indulgent piece

Theatre Royal Brighton Jeremy Malies in East Sussex “The past is never dead. It’s not even past” said William Faulkner.

Robert Schneider in New Haven, Connecticut 13 November 2023 Sanaz Toossi’s Wish You Were Here places the friendship of six

Jane Edwardes in west London 13 November 2023 Comedies are rarely seen at the Royal Court, but times are harsh,

Jeremy Malies in the West End 13 November 2023 Cock jokes it seems, to paraphrase Claudius in Hamlet, “come not

Neil Dowden in south London 12 November 2023 The plays of Federico García Lorca are regularly staged in the UK,

Neil Dowden in north London 12 November 2023 Richard Bean’s new play To Have and to Hold takes a wryly

Jeremy Malies in East Sussex 12 November 2023 In Brian Friel’s Translations the focus is on what is lost or

Tom Bolton in south London 5 November 2023 Cade & MacAskill – Rosana Cade and Ivor MacAskill – are a performance

Jeremy Malies in Eastbourne 4 November 2023 As a satire on military conflicts of all kinds, Joan Littlewood’s Oh! What

Mark Shenton in the West End 3 November 2023 Time famously plays tricks on us all; but what if our

Simon Thomas in the South West 1 November 2023 Deborah Warner’s tenure as artistic director of Bath’s Ustinov Studio continues

Yann Messager in Paris 1 November 2023 Jacques Weber’s Ruy Blas is an aesthetically intriguing and occasionally gripping rendition of

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin October 2023 This year, Anton Chekhov’s plays have been as popular as ever in Berlin. Following

Jeremy Malies in the West End 29 October 2023 Worker solidarity, second chances, and ambition tempered by kindness are the

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 26 October 2023 “My life would be a beautiful story that would become true,

Neil Dowden in the West End 24 October 2023 Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling 2020 novel Hamnet opened

Neil Dowden in north London 23 October 2023 Over the last four decades Marina Carr has forged a considerable reputation

Simon Thomas in the South West 21 October 2023 The first time I saw Brian Cox on stage was in

Glenda Frank in New York 19 October 2023 Despite the blood-red curtains, the ebony desk with its golden memento mori,

Vincent Macaigne’s vision of  Shakespeare at MC93 (Maison de la culture de Seine-Saint-Denis à Bobigny) Yann Messager reports from Paris

Simon Jenner in the West End 19 October 2023 Caryl Churchill’s first stage play Owners has proved doubly prescient. Premiering

Mark Shenton in the West End 16 October 2023 As the sun finally begins to set on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s

Neil Dowden in west London 16 October 2023 Ten years on from premiering Tanika Gupta’s The Empress, the RSC have

Jeremy Malies in West Sussex 13 October 2023 “It wasn’t as if there was any mystery to unravel” is one

Jane Edwardes on the South Bank 12 October 2023 In 2020, Clint Dyer and Roy Williams launched the first of

Glenda Frank in Manhattan 9 October 2023 This does not open with a bang although Jane (Sydney Lemmon, TÁR, “Succession”)

Dana Rufolo in Ghent October 2023 The first foray into directing opera of the acclaimed Swiss theatre director Milo Rau

Simon Thomas in Somerset 6 October 2023 It seems no time at all since Rupert Everett was appearing in the

Tom Bolton in South London 5 October 2023 There is something about Beyoncé and Thomas Middleton. Within a few minutes,

Dana Rufolo in Luxembourg October 2023 Lovefool is a drama that demands attention; it is a feminist cri de coeur

Mark Shenton in the West End 5 October 2023 Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends was a one-night gala held (appropriately) at

Simon Jenner on the South Bank 1 October 2023 Kim’s having a bad day, and it spans over a century.

Simon Jenner in West Sussex October 1 2023 “In the world of quizzing, the man who has the questions is

Jane Edwardes in the West End 1 October 2023  When Peter Hall was artistic director of the National Theatre, he

Jeremy Malies in south London  1 October 2023  Playwright Charlie Dupré’s imagination and writing skills have been fired by several

Neil Dowden in north London 28 September 2023 It seems that American playwright Lynn Nottage is finally getting the recognition

Mark Shenton in central London 27 September 2023 In Harold Pinter’s 1975 play No Man’s Land two older men meet

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 26 September 2023 “This is an age of upstarts” is one of Henry Higgins’s

Mark Shenton in east London 25 September 2023 In Jonathan Harvey’s first big hit play Beautiful Thing, originally premiered in

Neil Dowden in north London 25 September 2023 Hampstead Theatre has done sterling work in staging a number of new

Tom Bolton in south London 25 September 2023 It seems 2023 is the year we rediscovered the nuclear bomb. Against

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 20 September 2023 The name Nathuram Godse may not be familiar to most people

Mark Shenton in the West End 18 September 2023 The New York-based comedian, author, filmmaker, and podcaster Mike Birbiglia specializes

Jeremy Malies in west London 18 September 2023  Polly Stenham’s first play That Face (2007) opens by showing a piece

Mark Shenton in the West End 15 September 2023 In a world of seemingly endless re-hashes of popular film titles

Mark Shenton in the West End 14 September 2023 Like productions of King Lear or Hamlet, you never have to

Neil Dowden in west London 12 September 2023 French playwright Yasmina Reza is best known for her dark comedies satirizing

Simon Jenner in West Sussex 9 September 2023 After April De Angelis’ Kerry Jackson at the National last year, another

Simon Thomas in the West Country 2 September 2023 A play like Farewell Mister Haffmann shouldn’t really be as entertaining as it

Mark Shenton in the West End 1 September 2023 London had to wait 35 years for the arrival of the

Simon Jenner in East Sussex 25 August 2023 If you were thinking The Playgirl of the Western World as the

Jeremy Malies in north London 25 August 2023 “Bach Cello Suite No. 1!” said a critic who I hang about

Mark Shenton in the West End 24 August 2023Mamma Mia! – the jukebox musical forged out of the back catalogue

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin Since Peter Stein’s legendary staging of Three Sisters in 1984, remembered above all for the magnificent

Glenda Frank in Manhattan 22 August 2023 Towards the end of Act II of The Cottage, the comedy takes a

Mark Shenton in north London 15 August 2023  August 23 marks the 40th anniversary of the Broadway opening night of

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 13 August 2023 Premiered to acclaim in 2012 in the intimate Cottesloe (now Dorfman),

Simon Jenner in the West End 7 August 2023 Restoration panto meets The Comedy About a Bank Robbery? Based on

Neil Dowden in west London 2 August 2023 Postponed from last September, Rabiah Hussain’s intriguing new work Word-Play is, as

Simon Jenner in West Sussex 1 August  2023 Some have waited 46 years. Dominic Cooke brings back Howard Schuman and

Jeremy Malies in east London 27 July 2023 Imagine one of Iain Sinclair’s psychogeography books about London in a skilful

Neil Dowden in west London 19 July 2023 Michael Wynne’s new play Cuckoo – his eighth for the Royal Court

Mark Shenton in West Sussex 18 July 2023 Early on in The Sound of Music, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s final musical

Jeremy Malies in the West End 13 July 2023 “Observe first, interpret later.” This is the advice of nineteenth-century physician

Simon Jenner in West Sussex 8 July 2023 At the end of his life Wagner announced he’d revise his early

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 7 July 2023 Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park shows a character arriving on stage 15

Mark Shenton in the West End 7 July 2023 “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Dorothy tells her dog, after

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin Five years ago, the Komödie was compelled to go into temporary exile when wrecking balls started

Mark Shenton in the West End 4 July 2023 When Crazy for You originally premiered on Broadway in 1992, Frank

Mark Shenton in south London 3 July 2023 A truly sublime musical version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of

Mark Shenton in central London 3 July 2023 After Groundhog Day, a musical about a man trapped in a recurring

Neil Dowden in north London 30 June 2023 Shomit Dutta’s debut play Stumped is based on the delightful conceit of

Neil Dowden in the West End 27 June 2023 With a premiere at the National Theatre starring David Tennant in

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 25 June 2023 James Graham has forged a reputation as a political playwright with

Mark Shenton in the West End 23 June 2023   The original production of Mrs. Doubtfire began previews on 9 March

Simon Jenner in West Sussex 21 June 2023  “I can’t believe you’re Laurence Olivier!” Thus Adrienne Kennedy addresses the actor

Simon Thomas in the West Country 21 June 2023 A brand new Cole Porter musical has to be a good

Neil Dowden in the West End 19 June 2023 Jack Thorne must be one of the busiest dramatists around. While

Mark Shenton in north London 15 June 2023 “Think of musical comedy, the most glorious words in the English language!”

Simon Thomas in the South West 11 June 2023 In the 1960s, Bristol Old Vic mounted a very successful production

Jane Edwardes in west London 11 June 2023 The three monologues or, as he would say, poems that make up

Simon Jenner in West Sussex 11 June 2023 “Everybody’s got the right to… dream” American. Stephen Sondheim’s 1990 Assassins –

Mark Shenton on the South Bank 10 June 2023 If I ever found myself paralysed by time into re-living the

Jeremy Malies in East Sussex 7 June 2023 “Ever and ever, forever and ever you’ll be the one / That shines

Natalia Isaeva in Paris 15 December 2016 In 1965 Marguerite Duras created her La Musica initially as a radio play

Neil Dowden in north London 2 June 2023 Neil LaBute 2001’s romantic comedy-drama The Shape of Things is his most

Maggie Rose in Lombardy 31 May 2023 The Pathological Theatre’s Medea, directed and adapted by Dario D’Ambrosi, has been performed

“Rose” at Ambassadors Theatre Neil Dowden in the West End 29 May 2023 Martin Sherman – best known for his

Mark Shenton in the West End 26 May 2023 Aspects of Love, originally premiered in the West End in 1989,

Maggie Rose in Milan 25 May 2023   The tenth anniversary of Franca Rame’s death (29 May 2013) has been

Mark Shenton in north London 25 May 2023 I recently attended a gala at New York’s Classic Stage Company off-Broadway

Mark Shenton in south London 24 May 2023 Frank Loesser’s timeless 1950 masterpiece Guys and Dolls is currently receiving an

Mark Shenton in the West End 23 May 2023 Director Jonathan Butterell and composer Dan Gillespie Sells, two of the

Dana Rufolo in Luxembourg 12 May 2023 Complicité is a member of the UK Touring Theatre Companies and Drive Your

Simon Jenner in West Sussex 12 May 2023 As in the plot of the play, waves of past calamity are

Mark Shenton at the Brighton Festival 9 May 2023 Premiered at the Brighton Festival which is curated this year by

Jane Edwardes in west London 7 May 2023 Lenny Henry here exhibits his many talents with his first stage play,

Mark Shenton in West Sussex 5 May 2023 Hot on the heels of the scintillating revival of Noël Coward’s Private

Glenda Frank in New York 4 May 2023 They’re back – the Mischief Production zannis who last brought us the

Robert Schneider in Connecticut 3 May 2023 I write in order to describe taking a trip to theatrical Never-Never land,

Mark Shenton in north London 28 April 2023  Composer Duncan Sheik wrote the music for Spring Awakening, one of the

Mark Shenton in north London 28 April 2023 Ryan Calais Cameron is currently represented in the West End by the

Simon Jenner on the South Bank 26 April 2023 Though Mary’s family want to stage a small surprise reception for

Neil Dowden in west London 22 April 2023 First staged 80 years ago, Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan

Jeremy Malies on the South Bank 22 April 2022 It’s August 1936 in Ballybeg (literally “Little Town” in Gaelic), the

Neil Dowden in the West End 19 April 2023 Noël Coward’s masterly comedy of manners Private Lives has rarely been

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin 18th April 2023 Chekhov’s dramatic work features regularly in the repertoire of Berlin’s theatres, particularly the

Dana Rufolo in Luxembourg 18 April 2023 The Writer by Ella Hickson was staged under the auspices of Les Théâtres

Sasho Ognenovski in Sofia 17th April 2023 Nora (often used as an alternative title for A Doll’s House) is Ibsen’s

Sasho Ognenovski in Belgrade 17 April 2023 This sharp and observant play speaks of an inherited and politically instinctive “tyranny”,

Ken Edwards in the West End 17 April 2023   Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–81) was one of the

Mark Shenton in the West End 6 April 2023 There’s nothing little about the huge emotional intensity of Ivo van

Mark Shenton in the West End 3 April 2023 David Hare recently wrote a diary column for The Spectator (https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/musicals-are-killing-theatre/)

Jeremy Malies in East Sussex 1 April 2023 “Lady (Hear Me Tonight)” by Modjo is hardwired into me now such

Robert Schneider 29 March 2023   The difficulty in adapting Medea for modern audiences is clear: we must be horrified

Annie Loui in Los Angeles 28 March 2023 Anna Deavere Smith’s iconic play about the LA riots of 1992 has a

Glenda Frank in New York 28 March 2023 Like Shakespeare, Chekhov and Miller, Nobel Prize winner Samuel Beckett wrote plays

Neil Dowden in west London 28 March 2023 Actor and activist Danny Lee Wynter’s first work as a playwright –

Neil Dowden in west London 21 March 2023 Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist may have premiered in Italy

Neil Dowden in South London 19 March 2023 The Menier Chocolate Factory deserve much credit for staging the UK premiere

Simon Jenner in south London 19 March 2023 Slow-burn seems an inevitable phrase for Zinnie Harris’s second (1999) play Further

Glenda Frank on the Upper East Side 18 March 2023 At first the title Love seems bizarre, misleading, even ironic

Axel Hörhager in Austria 18 March 2023 Only Thomas Bernhard, with his acerbic and typically Austrian wit, could have commented

Mark Shenton on the South Bank 17 March 2023 In Nicholas Hytner’s fully immersive production of Frank Loesser’s Guys &

Jeremy Malies in Barcelona 16 March 2023 “An opera project” is how the official blurb describes this, so I don’t

Mark Shenton in the West End 13 March 2023 Broadway composer Frank Wildhorn has lost more money for theatre producers

Axel Hörhager in Austria 12 March 2023 The advance publicity by the Burgtheater, suggesting that their version of Friedrich Schiller’s

Tom Bolton in south London 3 March 2023 For Tim Crouch, challenge is inherent to performance. Walking onto a stage

Neil Dowden in the West End 3 March 2023 Willy Russell’s 1986 monodrama Shirley Valentine may seem a bit dated

Dana Rufolo at the Grand Théâtre 1 March 2023 Who else but the Berliner Ensemble, Bertolt Brecht’s own theatre company

Neil Dowden in South London 1 March 2023   It seems highly appropriate for Enda Walsh’s The Walworth Farce to

Mark Shenton in the West End 1 March 2023 “And when we say; Ee-ee-ow! A-yip-i-o-ee-ay! We’re only sayin’, You’re doin’

Maggie Rose in Lombardy 26 February 2023 Caryl Churchill’s work is enjoying unprecedented success in Italy. After many decades when

Maggie Rose in Lombardy 26 February 2023 Milan’s Franco Parenti Theatre is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, with a

Jeremy Malies in North London 26 February 2023 Lulu Raczka’s first play Nothing, a set of interconnected monologues about sexual

Jeremy Malies in the West End 23 February 2023 Worst mother in Greek tragedy? It’s a competitive field but Medea

Mark Shenton in the West End 21 February 2023 A personal note to begin: I first met playwright Diana Nneka

Neil Dowden in south London 19 February 2023 Tom Kempinksi’s 1980 drama Duet for One is an intense two-hander revolving

Mark Shenton on the South Bank 14 February 2023 After producing one of the biggest musical misfires of the last

Neil Dowden on the South Bank 14 February 2023 Simon Stone has made an international reputation as a writer-director in

Neil Dowden in the West End 13 February 2023 Stefano Massini’s epic three-act play The Lehman Trilogy adapted by Ben

Mark Shenton in the West End 7 February 2023 Words matter, in reviews as in life. But life is more

Hans-Jürgen Bartsch in Berlin 31 January 2023 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s play Minna von Barnhelm was premiered in 1767 at a

Neil Dowden in the West End 29 January 2023 Michael Frayn’s perennially popular 1982 meta-comedy Noises Off deconstructs farce while

Jeremy Malies in West Sussex 26 January 2023 Girl from the North Country is a play by Conor McPherson with