Shakespeare
Its and it’s
An item on the BBC news site didn’t mean what it said: ‘The latest move is part of a wider…
High life
Gstaad The sun has returned, the snow is so-so, and exercise has replaced everything, including romance. What a way to…
Return to gender
Emilia is a period piece about Emilia Bassano who may have been the ‘dark lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets. The writer,…
Mum’s the word
The virus has broken Edinburgh. The shattered remnants of the festival are visible on the internet. Here’s what happened. The…
Orbs and triangles
The BBC announces Merchant of Venice as if it were a Hollywood blockbuster. ‘In the melting pot of Venice, trade…
No laughing matter
The RSC’s 2014 version of Much Ado is breathtaking to look at. Sets, lighting and costumes are exquisitely done, even…
Walnut whips and Stafford Cripps
The National Theatre’s programme of livestreamed shows continues with the Donmar’s 2014 production of Coriolanus starring Tom Hiddleston. The play…
Good grief
Sea Wall, by Simon Stephens, is a half-hour monologue about grief performed by Andrew Scott. The YouTube clip has been…
Macbeth at the movies
The world’s greatest playwright ought to be dynamite at the movies. But it’s notoriously hard to turn a profit from…
Pinch and a punch
The National’s bizarre livestreaming service continues. On 7 May, for one week only, it released a modern-dress version of Antony…
Turns of the century
Not looking great, is it? Until we all get jabbed, theatres may have to stay closed. And even the optimists…
Watcher of the skies – and the coffee pot
‘To be recognised and accepted by a peregrine,’ wrote J.A. Baker in 1967, ‘you must wear the same clothes, travel…
Grief fills the room up
Maggie O’Farrell is much possessed by death. Her first novel, After You’d Gone (2000), chronicled the inner life of a…
Diary
Writers like me are used to long hours alone. I’ve never enjoyed that side of it. I don’t like the…
Closing time
War and plague have menaced theatres before, but rarely on this scale, says Lloyd Evans
Changing the bard
A Moorish princess shipwrecked on the English coast disguises herself as a boy to protect her virtue. Arriving in London,…
People expecting punishment won’t be disappointed: Almeida’s Duchess of Malfi reviewed
The Duchess of Malfi is one of those classics that everyone knows by name but not many have witnessed on…
All the world’s a stage: this election has echoes of Shakespeare and Dickens
The Christmas election has unfolded like a series of mini-dramas from panto, Dickens and other popular classics. Boris has come…
‘The only place I can’t get my plays on is Britain’: Sir Peter Brook interviewed
‘Everyone of us knows we deserve to be punished,’ says the frail old man before me in a hotel café.…
When did English A-level become a science?
Now that my youngest has got her A-level grades, I’m finally free to say just how much I have loathed…
The charm – and artifice – of the English cottage garden
The confusion is understandable. You arrive at Anne Hathaway’s Cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon, keen to experience the quintessential cottage garden —…
Star-crossed lovers: Sweet Sorrow, by David Nicholls, reviewed
The 16-year-old hero of David Nicholls’s fifth novel is ostensibly Everyboy. It is June 1997, the last day at dreary…
From bibliomania to kleptomania: the serious crimes of book lovers
In the spring of 1998, Rolling Stones fans in Germany were disappointed to hear that the band had been forced…
Willy Loman would have been fine if he’d worked in a laundry: Death of a Salesman reviewed
Colour-blind casting is a denial of history. The Young Vic’s all-black version of Death of a Salesman asks us to…
Why were the Victorians so obsessed with the moon?
In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a group of slightly ramshackle workmen decide to put on a play. The play…
