Theatre
Headed for the canon: Withnail and I, at the Birmingham Rep, reviewed
After nearly 40 years, Withnail has arrived on stage. Sean Foley directs Bruce Robinson’s adaptation, which starts with a live…
Fawlty Towers – The Play is the best museum piece you’ll ever see
Fawlty Towers at the Apollo may be the best museum piece you’ll ever see. A full-length play has been carved…
Minority Report is superficial pap – why on earth stage it?
Minority Report is a plodding bit of sci-fi based on a Steven Spielberg movie made more than two decades ago.…
Cheesy remake of Our Mutual Friend: London Tide, at the Lyttelton Theatre, reviewed
Our Mutual Friend has been turned into a musical with a new title, London Tide, which sounds duller and more…
Four female writers at the court of Elizabeth I
Of Ramie Targoff’s gifted quartet, Mary Sidney was particularly admired by her contemporaries for her translation of the Psalms into English verse
‘I couldn’t afford loo roll’: Bruce Robinson on being skint, Zeffirelli’s advances and Withnail’s return
Bruce Robinson is ramming a huge log into the grate of his ancient fireplace in mud-clogged Herefordshire. He’s 77 and…
Player Kings proves that Shakespeare can be funny
Play-goers, beware. Director Robert Icke is back in town, and that means a turgid four-hour revival of a heavyweight classic…
The mayhem ‘Born Slippy’ provoked felt both poignant and cathartic: Underworld, at Usher Hall, reviewed
On the same night Underworld played the second of two shows at the Usher Hall, next door at the Traverse…
The tumultuous story behind Caravaggio’s last painting
For centuries no one knew who it was by or even what it was of. The picture that had hung…
Exhilarating: MJ the Musical reviewed
If you’ve heard good reports about MJ the Musical, believe them all and multiply everything by a hundred. As a…
Comedy of the blackest kind: Boy Parts, at Soho Theatre, reviewed
There’s something mesmerising about watching a good mimic. And Aimée Kelly, who plays fetish photographer Irina Sturges in Soho Theatre’s…
If only Caryl Churchill’s plays were as thrillingly macabre as her debut
The first play by the pioneering feminist Caryl Churchill has been revived at the Jermyn Street Theatre. Owners, originally staged…
Scherzinger is superb but why’s the set so dark and ugly? Sunset Boulevard, at the Savoy Theatre, reviewed
Sunset Boulevard is a re-telling of the Oedipus story set in the cut-throat world of Hollywood. Pick a side in…
As gripping as an Agatha Christie thriller: Shooting Hedda Gabler, at the Rose Theatre, reviewed
The unlovely Rose Theatre in Kingston is a modest three-storey eyesore. The concrete foyer looks like an exercise area on…
Cheesy skit: A Mirror, at the Almeida Theatre, reviewed
The playwright Sam Holcroft likes to toy with dramatic conventions and to tease her audiences by withholding key information about…
