Shakespeare’s Globe
Ingenious: the Globe’s Romeo & Juliet reviewed
Cul-de-Sac feels like an ersatz sitcom of a kind that’s increasingly common on the fringe. Audiences are eager to see…
Everyone should see the Globe’s brilliant new production of The Crucible
Sanity returns to the Globe. Recent modern-dress productions have failed to make use of the theatre’s virtues as a historical…
The weasel under the cocktail cabinet
Macbeth at the Globe wants to put us at our ease and make us feel comfortable with the play’s arcane…
Weird and wonderful
A puzzle at Hampstead Theatre. Literally, a brain teaser. Its new production, Re-member Me, is a one-man show written and…
The script is the star
Southwark Playhouse has a reputation for small musicals with big ambitions. Tasting Notes is set in a wine bar run…
This is going to hurt
Some things are done well in the Globe’s new Julius Caesar. The assassination is a thrilling spectacle. Ketchup pouches concealed…
Screech, howl, yelp, crash
The new Lily Allen vehicle opens in a spruced-up terrace in the East End. Allen plays a self-satisfied yuppie, Jenny,…
Colour and confusion
Back to the Globe after more than a year. The theatre has zealously maintained its pre–Covid staffing levels. On press…
Good grief
Sea Wall, by Simon Stephens, is a half-hour monologue about grief performed by Andrew Scott. The YouTube clip has been…
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…
The Old Vic’s Sylvia may be the new Les Mis
Sylvia, the Old Vic’s musical about the Pankhurst clan, has had a troubled nativity. Illness struck the cast during rehearsals.…
The gentle side of Bruckner: Rotterdam Philharmonic’s Prom reviewed
It’s intelligent, enjoyable, beautiful to look at and funny in unexpected places, yet Othello at the Globe didn’t quite meet…
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…
Bard goes to Bollywood
The Globe’s new chatelaine, Emma Rice, has certainly shaken the old place up. It’s almost unrecognisable. Huge white plastic orbs…
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…
Going Global
Isn’t it time we asked the National Theatre to support itself? Lloyd Evans says yes
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…
Going places
It’s been a spring tradition for several years now for English National Opera to present small-scale productions in various venues…
False starts
This is brilliant. The new play by Oliver Cotton, a 69-year-old actor, is set in New York in 1986. An…
