Theatre

Worth watching for the comments thread alone: NT's Twelfth Night livestream reviewed

2 May 2020 9:00 am

‘Enjoy world-class theatre online for free,’ announces the National Theatre. Every Thursday at 7 p.m. a play from the archive…

The best theatre of the 21st century

25 April 2020 9:00 am

Not looking great, is it? Until we all get jabbed, theatres may have to stay closed. And even the optimists…

From Middlemarch to Mickey Mouse: a short history of The Spectator’s books and arts pages

24 April 2020 11:00 pm

The Spectator arts and books pages have spent 10,000 issues identifying the dominant cultural phenomena of the day and being difficult about them, says Richard Bratby

Reflections on isolation: the first lockdown dramas reviewed

18 April 2020 9:00 am

High Tide got there first. The East Anglian theatre company has produced a series of lockdown mini-dramas, Love in the…

Absorbing and meticulously researched play about Partition: Drawing the Line reviewed

11 April 2020 9:00 am

Theatres have taken to the internet like never before. Recorded performances are being made available over the web, many for…

The life of Artemisia Gentileschi is made for Netflix, but it’s the art that really excites

11 April 2020 9:00 am

The life of Artemisia Gentileschi is made for Netflix, says Laura Freeman, but it’s her art that really excites

War and plague have menaced theatres before, but rarely on this scale

28 March 2020 9:00 am

War and plague have menaced theatres before, but rarely on this scale, says Lloyd Evans

A mesmerising piece of theatre: On Blueberry Hill reviewed

21 March 2020 9:00 am

On Blueberry Hill sounds like a musical but it’s a sombre prison drama set in Ireland. Two bunkbeds. Above, an…

‘Irish writers don’t talk to each other unless they’re shouting abuse’: Sebastian Barry interviewed

14 March 2020 9:00 am

Sebastian Barry talks to Robert Jackman about family folklore, the joy of writing playsand why he is not an ‘Irish’ novelist

Unimpressive: The Prince of Egypt reviewed

7 March 2020 9:00 am

The Prince of Egypt is a musical adapted from a 1998 Dreamworks cartoon based on the Book of Exodus. So…

Comedy gold: The Upstart Crow at the Gielgud Theatre reviewed

29 February 2020 9:00 am

A Moorish princess shipwrecked on the English coast disguises herself as a boy to protect her virtue. Arriving in London,…

A dark emerald set in the Irish laureate’s fictional tiara: Actress, by Anne Enright, reviewed

15 February 2020 9:00 am

Actress is the novel Anne Enright has been rehearsing since her first collection of stories, The Portable Virgin (1991). It…

A brilliant, unrevivable undertaking: Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt reviewed

15 February 2020 9:00 am

History will record Leopoldstadt as Tom Stoppard’s Schindler’s List. His brilliant tragic-comic play opens in the Jewish quarter of Vienna…

This is how theatre should work post-Brexit: Blood Wedding reviewed

15 February 2020 9:00 am

Blood Wedding, by the Spanish dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca, is one of those heavyweight tragedies that risks looking a bit…

A terrific two-hander that belongs at the National: RSC's Kunene and the King reviewed

7 February 2020 10:00 pm

The Gift is three plays in one. It opens in a blindingly white Victorian parlour where a posh lady, Sarah,…

Strong performances in a slightly wonky production: Uncle Vanya reviewed

1 February 2020 9:00 am

Uncle Vanya opens with a puzzle. Is the action set in the early 20th century or right now? The furnishings…

Sweeping, sod-you comedy – irresistible: Billionaire Boy reviewed

24 January 2020 10:00 pm

Falling In Love Again features two of the 20th century’s best-known sex athletes. Ron Elisha’s drama covers a long drunken……

People expecting punishment won’t be disappointed: Almeida’s Duchess of Malfi reviewed

18 January 2020 9:00 am

The Duchess of Malfi is one of those classics that everyone knows by name but not many have witnessed on…

Redneck twaddle: Young Vic’s Fairview reviewed

11 January 2020 9:00 am

Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury won last year’s Pulitzer Prize. It deserves additional awards for promoting racial disharmony and entrenching…

‘I aspire to write for posterity’: An interview with Tom Stoppard

21 December 2019 9:00 am

Sir Tom Stoppard is Britain’s — perhaps the world’s — leading playwright. Born Tomas Straussler in Zlin, Czechoslovakia, in 1937,…

Full of fascinating data and excellent comedy: Messiah at Stratford Circus reviewed

21 December 2019 9:00 am

I’ve joined the Black Panthers. At least I think I have. I took part in an induction ceremony at the…

A flimsy tale of self-pity and thwarted ambition: Hunger at the Arcola reviewed

14 December 2019 9:00 am

Oh my God. The Nazis have invaded the Arcola Theatre. Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsen won the Nobel Prize in 1920…

‘You either are panto, or you aren’t’: Christopher Biggins on his favourite time of year

7 December 2019 9:00 am

Christopher Biggins has managed to bag some of the nation’s favourite TV characters over the years: Lukewarm in Porridge and…

Punk spirit underpinned by darkness and horror: Richard III at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre reviewed

7 December 2019 9:00 am

The history plays are different. In dramas like Othello, Hamlet and Much Ado, Shakespeare laid out the plot with great…

Smart, funny and beautifully imagined: RSC’s The Boy in the Dress reviewed

7 December 2019 9:00 am

David Walliams is one of the biggest-selling children’s authors in the world (having shifted some 25 million copies in more…