At a time when, in the post-Brexit years, British theatre is increasingly insular, a visit by the Wooster Group, legendary veterans of American experimental theatre, is surely worth celebrat…
Every day, for many weeks, we keep hearing about nuclear weapons. Part of the reason for the current attack on Iran by the United States and Israel is the idea, whether true or not, that the…
Okay, this is odd. The original novel, Les Liaisons dangereuses, first published in 1782, features a rich and powerful man and woman positively exulting in their manipulation of a much young…
Today, in Geneva, there are tentative peace talks between Ukraine and Russia; today, in London, there is a powerful play about the ongoing war. Oddly enough, it is fringe venues, the Finboro…
Terence Rattigan is a posh playwright whose work encapsulates the emotional restraint of the 1950s, and who was overtaken by the Angry Young Men. Right? Wrong! Although this sketch of his ca…
Some shows have great moments, but somehow just don't work " the whole is less than the sum of its parts. This is my feeling about Frantic Assembly's 30th anniversary show, Lost Atoms, which…
New Year, new line up of West End stars. This time it's the turn of Olivier-Award-winner Sheridan Smith and multi-award-winning comedian Romesh Ranganathan, both household names, now appeari…
Thatcher, and the image of Thatcher's Britain, continues to cast a long shadow over contemporary culture. So it's hardly a surprise that the most audience-pleasing moment in playwright Jack …
In 2023, Malaysian actor Michelle Yeoh won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Some reactions praised her as "the first Asian actress" to achieve…
Weird scenes inside the farmhouse; weird scenes in Northern Ireland; weird scenes of the 1980s. Meghan Tyler's Crocodile Fever at the Arcola Theatre is a breath-takingly eccentric and wonder…
The Royal Court, Britain's premiere new writing venue, celebrates its platinum anniversary next year " yes, it's been 70 years since 1956's Look Back in Anger. In anticipation, the theatre i…
Broken Britain has a big problem with youth. About a million of those aged 16 to 24 are NEETs (not in education, employment or training), some 13 per cent of this age group. Many working-cla…
Perhaps it's an indicator of the feebleness of new writing after the pandemic that so many of the current highly hyped plays are 1990s and 2000s revivals " success in the past is, it is hope…
Slowly, very slowly, the audience begins to arrive. Taking their seats, shedding jackets, arranging bags and glancing at programmes. But already, there's a stir: the imposing figure of actor…
Is there such a thing as the seven-year itch? Named after Billy Wilder's 1955 comedy, which starred Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell, in which a psychiatrist argues that almost all men need to h…
George Bernard Shaw is the supreme example of old writing. Maddeningly verbose, eye-poppingly articulate and self-consciously progressive, his work is so Edwardian that any revival runs the …
Let us always remember the pioneers. Although there is a fair amount of relatively mainstream queer theatre today (fueled in the popular imagination by RuPaul's Drag Race on BBC television),…
Only the truth, we are told, can set us free " but there are times in love when the New Testament Gospel of John is an inadequate guide. A good example is the situation that Terence Rattigan…
Theatre needs mystery. In the darkened auditorium, with a crowd of strangers sharing your experience, it is possible to believe in anything you see on the stage: ghosts, miracles and magic. …
Coming of age stories are more or less all the same. But what distinguishes Julia Grogan's Playfight, which was first staged at the Edinburgh Festival last year, and is now at London's Soho …
Are we really in "a new era of male anger, societal discontent and rage"? This is what Royal Court artistic director David Byrne claims in the programme of Manhunt, Robert Icke's new documen…
Anxiety. Apprehension. Angst even. Yes, that's the feeling that rises in me as I come into the auditorium of Omnibus Theatre, in Clapham, south London, to watch Chris Fung perform in his own…
One of the joys of contemporary playwriting is its openness to flexible casting. In Ruby Thomas's 2019 play Either, for example, there are two lovers " denoted as A and B " whose story is pe…
How long would you wait for your soulmate? In "The Demon Lover", a short story by Elizabeth Bowen, published in 1945, a young couple make a passionate vow during the first world war. When he…
Diaries are dynamite " they hold secrets, and secrets can tear families apart. In Coral Wylie's debut, Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew, currently at the Bush Theatre, written records are lin…