Young vic
Omission accomplished
Beneatha’s Place, set in the 1950s, follows a black couple who encounter racial prejudice when they move to a predominately…
End of play
Zoe Strimpel on how identity politics is killing theatre
The philosopher and the philistine
The Collaboration is set in the 1980s when Andy Warhol teamed up with the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat to create bad…
Boom and bust
Moulin Rouge wins no marks for its storyline. A struggling Parisian theatre is bought out by an evil financier who…
Simply Shakespeare
Here goes. The Young Vic’s Hamlet, directed by Greg Hersov, is a triumph. This is a pared-back, plain-speaking version done…
Theatre’s final taboo – fun
The stage has become a pleasure-free zone in which snarling dramatists fight over their pet political causes, says Lloyd Evans
Into the jaws of hell
Southwark Playhouse is beating the latest lockdown with a zingy new musical about social media. The performers, Francesca Forristal and…
Sins of the fathers, music of the sons
When Kwame Kwei-Armah took over the Young Vic he strapped a ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign over the front of the…
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…
Angry, cold, self-centred, opaque, disconnected and brutalising: Bronx Gothic reviewed
Sometimes it’s hard to describe a play without appearing to defame the writer, the performer and the theatre responsible for…
Deserves its classic status: Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train at the Young Vic reviewed
Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train by Stephen Adly Guirgis deserves its classic status. This wordy and highly cerebral play pulls…
The good Palestinian
Shubbak, meaning ‘window’ in Arabic, is a biennial festival taking place in various venues across London. The brochure reads like…
Mind games
Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall enjoys the dubious status of a modern classic. A black mental-health patient, Christopher, is about to…
Passion play
Illness forced Kim Cattrall to withdraw from Linda, the Royal Court’s new show, and Noma Dumezweni scooped up the debris…
Theatre and transgression in Europe’s last dictatorship
Juan Holzmann goes underground in Minsk with the Belarus Free Theatre
One foot on the catwalk
St James Theatre hosts a new play about Alexander McQueen (real name Lee), whose star flashed briefly across the fashion…
Losing the plot
Enter Rufus Norris. The new National Theatre boss is perfectly on-message with this debut effort by Caryl Churchill. Her 1976…
It’s a knockout
A knockout show at the Young Vic. Literally. The stage has been reconfigured as a boxing ring to make Mike…
Beauty without brains
The Young Vic produces shows that please many but rarely me. Its big hit of 2014, A Streetcar Named Desire,…
In a spin
Streetcar. One word is enough to conjure an icon. Tennessee Williams’s finest play, written in the 1940s, is about a…
Mothers’ ruin
Rewrite the history books! Tradition tells us that kitchen-sink drama began in 1956 with Look Back in Anger. A season…
In the slammer
Athol Fugard is regarded as a theatrical titan but I usually need a microscope to find any trace of greatness…
Messing around with Berg
Why would anyone want to adapt Berg’s Lulu, a masterpiece even if a problematic one? According to John Fulljames, who…
