Theatre
Speech therapy
Oslo opened in the spring of 2016 at a modest venue in New York. It moved to Broadway and this…
Age concern
Stephen Sondheim’s Follies takes a huge leap into the past. It’s 1971 and we meet two middle-aged couples who knew…
Keeping it in the family
A new orthodoxy governs the casting process in Hollywood. An actor’s ethnicity must match the character’s. If you extend this…
Animal or vegetable?
Against by Christopher Shinn sets out to unlock the secrets of America’s spiritual malaise. Two main settings represent the wealthy…
The many sides of satire
Brexit the Musical is a peppy satire written by Chris Bryant (not the MP, he’s a lawyer). Musically the show…
Starting block
Conor McPherson’s new play is set in dust-bowl Minnesota in 1934. We’re in a fly-blown boarding house owned by skint,…
Heavy-handed
Oliver Cotton is an RSC stalwart who looks like a man born to greatness. Google him. He has the fearless…
Out of sorts at the RSC
The RSC’s summer blockbuster is about Queen Anne. It’s called Queen Anne. It opens at the Inns of Court where…
The good Palestinian
Shubbak, meaning ‘window’ in Arabic, is a biennial festival taking place in various venues across London. The brochure reads like…
Animal crackers
The Vaults at Waterloo are gallantly trying to pose as the party spot for hipsters in the world’s coolest city.…
Hyped to death
Hand it to the Americans. They know how to hype a young talent to death. The latest to be asphyxiated…
Here comes the Sun
It was most odd. Four decades after I’d walked into the Sun to start my first shift as a news…
Hymn to self-slaughter
Anatomy of a Suicide looks at three generations of women in various phases of mental collapse. They line up on…
Party piece
The National Theatre could hardly resist Barber Shop Chronicles. The play shines a light on a disregarded ethnic community, black…
Fantastic Mr Fox
Sand in the Sandwiches is the perfect show for those who feel the West End should be an intellectual funfair.…
Army surplus
Georg Büchner, a justly neglected German playwright, died at the age of 23 leaving a half-finished script about a mad…
Sado-erotic review
The Olivier describes Salomé by Yaël Farber as a ‘new’ play. Not quite. It premièred in Washington a couple of…
Killing time
Jez Butterworth’s new play The Ferryman is set in Armagh in 1981. Quinn, a former terrorist, has swapped the armed…
Sins of the flesh
Obsession at the Barbican has a complicated provenance. The experimental Belgian director Ivo van Hove adapted the show from a…
Masonic bodge
Left-wing groupie Paul Mason has written a costume drama about the suppression of the Paris commune in 1871. We meet…
Pleasing pedantry
Christopher Hampton’s 1968 play The Philanthropist examines the romantic travails of Philip, a cerebral university philologist, forced to choose between…
Boozy bard
Even the Bard’s staunchest fans admit that ‘Shakespeare comedy’ may be an oxymoron. That’s the assumption of the touring company…
Law in action
It’s like Raging Bull. The great Scorsese movie asks if a professional boxer can exclude violence from his family life.…
Kill the DJ
Don Juan in Soho rehashes an old Spanish yarn about a sexual glutton ruined by his appetite. Setting the story…
LA story
BREAKING NEWS: ‘Enjoyable play found at Royal Court.’ Generally, the Court likes to send its customers home feeling depressed, guilty,…
