Festival picks
Rain whimpers from Edinburgh’s skies. The sodden tourists look like aliens in their steamed-up ponchos as they scurry and rustle…
In a spin
Streetcar. One word is enough to conjure an icon. Tennessee Williams’s finest play, written in the 1940s, is about a…
Edinburgh rocks
And they’re off. The mighty caravan of romantic desperadoes, radical egoists, stadium wannabes, struggling superstars and vanity crackheads is on…
Edinburgh rocks
And they’re off. The mighty caravan of romantic desperadoes, radical egoists, stadium wannabes, struggling superstars and vanity crackheads is on…
Edinburgh rocks
And they’re off. The mighty caravan of romantic desperadoes, radical egoists, stadium wannabes, struggling superstars and vanity crackheads is on…
There will be blood
Carrie Cracknell’s new version of Medea strikes with overwhelming and rather puzzling force. The royal palace has been done up…
North and south
Torben Betts, head boy at Alan Ayckbourn’s unofficial school of apprentices, has written at least a dozen plays I’ve never…
A cruel blast
Mr Bean, one of our greatest comic exports, has an alter ego. The second Mr Bean, forename Richard, is the…
Going Global
Isn’t it time we asked the National Theatre to support itself? Lloyd Evans says yes
Same old ground
Hampstead’s new play about the 1984 miners’ strike was nearly defeated by technical glitches. Centre stage in Ed Hall’s production…
Going Global
Listen http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_10_July_2014_v4.mp3 Two glorious playhouses grace the south bank of the Thames. Shakespeare’s Globe and the National Theatre stage the…
Going Global
Listen http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_10_July_2014_v4.mp3 Two glorious playhouses grace the south bank of the Thames. Shakespeare’s Globe and the National Theatre stage the…
Over the top
Fashion Victim — the Musical!. There’s a title that’s been waiting to be used for ages. The Cinema Museum is…
Talking shop
Nice one, Roy. Across the West End secret toasts are being drunk to the England supremo for his exquisitely crafted…
His dark materials
Alex Jennings, the new Willy Wonka, tells Lloyd Evans why Dahl’s ‘misanthropic world’ is fascinating to inhabit
Humour, horror, beauty
Fans of Chekhov have to endure both feast and famine. Feast because his works are revived everywhere. Famine because he…
Shakespeare for laughs
It’s hilarious. It’s also annoying that it’s so hilarious. Jonathan Munby’s earthy and glamorous production of Antony and Cleopatra goes…
Touching from a distance
Lionel is a king of the New York art scene. An internationally renowned connoisseur, he travels the world creating and…
Dazzling caper
Joan Littlewood’s greatest disservice to the theatre was to champion ‘the right to fail’, which encouraged writers and directors to…
Firmly in focus
Lloyd Evans talks to the good-natured theatre director Polly Teale
Brain power
How do you write a play? Here’s one theory. Put a guy up a tree, throw rocks at him, get…
… and waiving the rules
Jean Trumpington’s memoir, published as she closes in on her 92nd birthday, is an absolute blast from the opening page.…
Failed experiment
The Silver Tassie is the major opening at the Lyttelton this spring. Sean O’Casey’s rarely staged play introduces us to…
Tangled up in blue
Off to the Gate for a special treat: a pious anti-war monologue from the prize-winning American George Brant. Curtain up.…
Class act
Cripes. How did I get that one wrong? A few issues back I blithely predicted that Harry Hill’s musical I…
