Theatre
Girls aloud
The age of ‘ladies first’ is back. Phyllida Lloyd reserves all the roles for the weaker sex, as I imagine…
Sister act
First, a bit of background. Conquering Agamemnon slew his daughter, Iphigenia, in return for a fair wind to Troy. This…
The Tim and Andy show
Tim and Andy are back. Their monster hit Evita opens the fully refurbed and re-primped Dominion Theatre, which is built…
Nobs and numbskulls
Suppose Charles were to reign as a meddlesome, self-pitying, indecisive plonker. It’s a thought. It’s now a play, too, by…
Bad bad acting
It’s taken a while but here it is. The Play That Goes Wrong is like Noises Off, but simpler. Michael…
Independence blues
Referendum fever reaches Stratford East. Spoiling, by John McCann, takes us into the corridors of power in Holyrood shortly after…
Bent bureaucrats and bakers
Eye of a Needle, by newcomer Chris MacDonald, looks at homosexuality and asylum. Gays from the Third World, who’ve suppressed…
Dolts, doormats and FGM
Wow. What an experience. A 1991 movie named Dogfight has spawned a romantic musical. We’re in San Francisco in 1963.…
Edinburgh round-up
Let’s start with a nightmare. Wendy Wason, an Edinburgh comedienne, travelled to LA last year accompanied by her husband, who…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Brain power
How do you write a play? Here’s one theory. Put a guy up a tree, throw rocks at him, get…
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…
