Theatre
No q for the toilet
‘Enjoy world-class theatre online for free,’ announces the National Theatre. Every Thursday at 7 p.m. a play from the archive…
Turns of the century
Not looking great, is it? Until we all get jabbed, theatres may have to stay closed. And even the optimists…
On the contrary
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
Within these walls
High Tide got there first. The East Anglian theatre company has produced a series of lockdown mini-dramas, Love in the…
Separation anxiety
Theatres have taken to the internet like never before. Recorded performances are being made available over the web, many for…
‘I’ll show you what a woman can do’
The life of Artemisia Gentileschi is made for Netflix, says Laura Freeman, but it’s her art that really excites
Closing time
War and plague have menaced theatres before, but rarely on this scale, says Lloyd Evans
The inside story
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 – they shout abuse’
Sebastian Barry talks to Robert Jackman about family folklore, the joy of writing playsand why he is not an ‘Irish’ novelist
Pyramid of piffle
The Prince of Egypt is a musical adapted from a 1998 Dreamworks cartoon based on the Book of Exodus. So…
Changing the bard
A Moorish princess shipwrecked on the English coast disguises herself as a boy to protect her virtue. Arriving in London,…
Acting the part
Actress is the novel Anne Enright has been rehearsing since her first collection of stories, The Portable Virgin (1991). It…
Family matters
History will record Leopoldstadt as Tom Stoppard’s Schindler’s List. His brilliant tragic-comic play opens in the Jewish quarter of Vienna…
Local hero
Blood Wedding, by the Spanish dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca, is one of those heavyweight tragedies that risks looking a bit…
On the bias
The Gift is three plays in one. It opens in a blindingly white Victorian parlour where a posh lady, Sarah,…
Doing Chekhov by halves
Uncle Vanya opens with a puzzle. Is the action set in the early 20th century or right now? The furnishings…
Upstairs downstairs
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
David Walliams is one of the biggest-selling children’s authors in the world (having shifted some 25 million copies in more…
