National Theatre

Going Dutch: Eelco Smits and Janni Goslinga of Toneelgroep Amsterdam in ‘Kings of War’

This year's must-see Shakespeare? Four hours of history in Dutch

23 April 2016 9:00 am

James Woodall talks to the Belgian director Ivo van Hove, who has brought a swathe of Shakespeare’s history plays to the stage in Dutch (four hours of it)

Les Blancs at the Olivier is good-ish, but it won't be a classic

16 April 2016 9:00 am

Les Blancs had a troubled birth. In 1965 several unfinished drafts of the play were entrusted by its dying author,…

Intelligent design: Alex Eales’s set for ‘Cleansed’ is the star of the show at the Dorfman

Sarah Kane's Cleansed is a thin, vicious pantomime

5 March 2016 9:00 am

Big fuss about Cleansed at the Dorfman. Talk of nauseous punters rushing for the gangways may have perversely delighted the…

Carly Bawden as Alice and Joshua Lacey as the White Rabbit

Damon Albarn’s wonder.land will not succeed at the National. It might work in Vegas

9 January 2016 9:00 am

Damon Albarn and Rufus Norris present a musical version of Alice in Wonderland. A challenging enterprise even if they’d stuck…

Tricycle’s Ben Hur is magnificent in its superficiality - a masterpiece of nothing

12 December 2015 9:00 am

It’s the target that makes the satire as well as the satirist. Is the subject powerful, active, relevant and menacing?…

Why is there no one at the National Theatre preventing these duds getting staged?

28 November 2015 9:00 am

Wallace Shawn is a lovely old sausage. A stalwart of American theatre, he’s taken cameo roles in classic movies like…

The way we were: Dame Peggy Ashcroft as Queen Margaret, with Donald Sinden and cast members, in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘Wars of the Roses’, Stratford, 1963

Shakespeare's Wars of the Roses is being staged without a single black actor. So what?

5 September 2015 9:00 am

Trevor Nunn is staging Shakespeare’s Wars of the Roses without a single black actor. So what, says Robert Gore-Langton

The choreographer that does things to tango couples that Relate would not recommend

20 June 2015 9:00 am

I often regret that I’m writing in the past tense here, but never more than about milonga. It is such…

Are we ready for a play about Jimmy Savile?

6 June 2015 9:00 am

Will Gore talks to the playwright who has brought Jimmy Savile’s crimes to the stage

American Buffalo at Wyndham’s reviewed: ‘magnificent, multicoloured, vast and tragic’

9 May 2015 9:00 am

David Mamet is Pinter without the Pinteresque indulgences, the absurdities and obscurities, the pauses, the Number 38 bus routes. American…

Why Caryl Churchill is massively overrated - and how the National Theatre befriends terror

2 May 2015 9:00 am

Enter Rufus Norris. The new National Theatre boss is perfectly on-message with this debut effort by Caryl Churchill. Her 1976…

Nicholas Hytner’s sod-you farewell: Rules for Living at the Dorfman reviewed

11 April 2015 9:00 am

Experts are concerned that Alan Ayckbourn’s plays may soon face extinction. Fewer than 80 of these precious beasts still exist…

Tom Stoppard’s The Hard Problem review: too clever by half

7 February 2015 9:00 am

Big event. A new play from Sir Tom. And he tackles one of philosophy’s oldest and crunchiest issues, which varsity…

Without childhood traumas, how did Alan Bennett ever become a writer?

10 January 2015 9:00 am

‘So — take heart,’ said Alan Bennett, sending us out from his play, Cocktail Sticks, on a cheery note. The…

National Theatre’s 3 Winters: a hideous Balkans ballyhoo

3 January 2015 9:00 am

A masterpiece at the National. A masterpiece of persuasion and bewitchment. Croatian word-athlete Tena Stivicic has miraculously convinced director Howard…

David Hare’s notebook: The National Theatre belongs to taxpayers, not corporate sponsors

13 December 2014 9:00 am

The nicest day of the year was spent at Charleston in May. The Sussex farmhouse shared by Duncan Grant and…

Poverty ogling: Stephanie Street and Meera Syal in ‘Behind the Beautiful Forevers’

The National’s latest attempt to cheer us up: three hours of poverty porn

29 November 2014 9:00 am

Bombay is now called Mumbai by everyone bar its residents, whose historic name (from the Portuguese for ‘beautiful cove’) has…

Proposal for Convoys Wharf, Deptford: a new commuter enclave with a nice view

How Londoners can reclaim the River Thames

8 November 2014 9:00 am

The current redevelopment of the city’s riverside is a lost opportunity to reclaim the Thames for Londoners, says Ellis Woodman

Terribly, terribly English: Helen McCrory as Medea

Let’s face it, Greek tragedy is often earnest, obscure or boring. Not this Medea

2 August 2014 9:00 am

Carrie Cracknell’s new version of Medea strikes with overwhelming and rather puzzling force. The royal palace has been done up…

Isn’t it time we asked the National Theatre to support itself?

12 July 2014 9:00 am

Isn’t it time we asked the National Theatre to support itself? Lloyd Evans says yes

Sam Mendes's King Lear is a must-see for masochists

1 February 2014 9:00 am

Directors appear to have two design options when approaching a Shakespeare tragedy. Woodstock or jackboot. Woodstock means papal robes, shoulder-length…

Come to the Spectator office, Gareth Malone, and hear our 'Carmina Burana'

9 November 2013 9:00 am

They’re now televising proceedings from the Court of Appeal. Great. As if I didn’t have enough to do already, keeping…

The Light Princess badly needs a mission

26 October 2013 9:00 am

There are many pleasures in The Light Princess, a new musical by Tori Amos. George MacDonald’s fairy story introduces us…

As Luck Would Have It, by Derek Jacobi - review

28 September 2013 9:00 am

Alan Bennett once overheard an old lady say, ‘I think a knighthood was wasted on Derek Jacobi,’ and I know…

Stage Blood, by Michael Blakemore - review

21 September 2013 9:00 am

Stage Blood, as its title suggests, is as full of vitriol, back-stabbing and conspiracy as any Jacobean tragedy. In this…