Theatre
This Othello is almost flawless
Othello directed by Tom Morris opens with a stately display of scarlet costumes and gilded doorways arranged against a backdrop…
Perfection: Hampstead Theatre’s The Assembled Parties reviewed
The Assembled Parties, by Richard Greenberg, is a rich, warm family comedy that received three Tony nominations in 2013 following…
Why was the 19th century so full of bigots and weirdos?
Da Vinci’s Laundry is based on an art world rumour. In 2017, Leonardo’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ sold at Christie’s for $450…
Tracy Letts’s magic touch
Tracy Letts’s Mary Page Marlowe is a biographical portrait of an emotionally damaged mother struggling with romantic and family problems.…
What does it feel like to perform the same show 355 times in one year?
I have my routine down to a science. At 6.59, I’m sitting in the stairwell, typing on my laptop or…
Stephen Fry is the perfect Lady Bracknell
Hamlet at the National opens like a John Lewis Christmas advert. Elegant celebrations are in progress. The stage is full…
When Freud met Hitler
A new play by Lawrence Marks and Maurice Gran, the writers of Birds of a Feather, feels like a major…
Picasso’s ravishing work for the ballet
Visitors to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s new storehouse in Stratford’s Olympic Park are being enthralled by an atmospherically lit…
The time Spike Milligan tried to kill me
The theatre impresario Michael White rang me one day in 1964, and said he was presenting a play at the…
An English Chekhov: The Gathered Leaves at Park200 reviewed
Chekhov with an English accent. That’s how Andrew Keatley’s play, The Gathered Leaves, begins. The setting is a country house…
Glorious: Good Night, Oscar, at the Barbican, reviewed
Good Night, Oscar is a biographical play about Oscar Levant, a famous pianist who was also a noted wit and…
The problem with psychiatrists? They’re all depressed
Edinburgh seems underpopulated this year. The whisky bars are half full and the throngs of tourists who usually crowd the…
What a slippery, hateful toad Fred Goodwin was
Make It Happen is a portrait of a bullying control freak, Fred Goodwin, who turned RBS into the largest bank…
Rattigan’s films are as important as his plays
A campaign is under way to rename the West End’s Duchess Theatre after the playwright Terence Rattigan. Supported as it…
Edinburgh Fringe’s war on comedy
Every day my inbox fills with stories of panic, madness and despair. The Edinburgh Fringe is upon us and the…
The National have bungled their Rishi Sunak satire
The Estate begins with a typical NHS story. An elderly Sikh arrives in A&E after a six-hour wait for an…
Scooby-Doo has better plots: Almeida’s A Moon for the Misbegotten reviewed
A Moon for the Misbegotten is a dream-like tragedy by Eugene O’Neill set on a barren farm in Connecticut. Phil…
The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs is as sweet and comforting as a knickerbocker glory
The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs is a comedy that feels as sweet and comforting as a knickerbocker glory. The show…
Superb: Stereophonic, at Duke of York’s Theatre, reviewed
Stereophonic is a slow-burning drama set in an American recording studio in 1976. A collection of hugely successful musicians, loosely…
The cheering fantasies of Oliver Messel
Through the grey downbeat years of postwar austerity, we nursed cheering fantasies of a life more lavishly colourful and hedonistic.…
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…
Why disaffected actors often make excellent playwrights
Actors are easily bored on long runs. Phoebe Waller-Bridge once revealed that she staged distractions in the wings to amuse…
Provocative, verbose and humourless: Mrs Warren’s Profession reviewed
George Bernard Shaw’s provocative play Mrs Warren’s Profession examines the moral hypocrisy of the moneyed classes. It opens with a…
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…
Magnificent: The Deep Blue Sea, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, reviewed
Richard Bean appears to be Hampstead Theatre’s in-house dramatist, and his new effort, House of Games, is based on a…
