British people are socially awkward: this explains why we talk about the weather, queue compulsively and pretend to be polite. It is also at the heart of our television culture, anything fro…
Marketing is the new real. For many years, in theatre as elsewhere in society, the most important thing is not creativity, or originality, or integrity, but hype. A good example is The Years…
Even the best streamed theatre can't compete with the live version. It's simple " with this art form you really have to be there. In person. Take the case of Tarantula, master storyteller Ph…
Is resilience the most powerful character trait? When you think about the suffering of the Windrush Generation, migrants to the UK in the 1950s, it is their sheer staying power that is immed…
Fringe venues perform a vital role on the ecology of London theatre. While many shows at these small venues are underfunded, and some are frankly rough as well as ready, you can occasionally…
The myth of Oedipus is so central to our psychic world that I was really surprised how many people in the audience for this revival were shocked by the revelation of the protagonist's incest…
Roald Dahl evokes mixed feelings. He's one of the greatest children's storytellers, whose macabre books have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide; he was also anti-Semitic, and used…
Although the idea of deporting people to Rwanda as a punishment is now, following the defeat of the Tories in this year's General Election, off the political agenda, the way we as a society …
Adultery is the great staple of modern British playwriting. The anguish of marriage, and the temptations of infidelity run like a red thread from John Osborrne's Look Back in Anger, via Haro…
Sanaz Toossi's English at the Kiln Theatre: Pulitzer Prize-winning play shows the impacts of a second language on identity The full version of the article Sanaz Toossi's English at the Kiln…
For me, this is the most emotional show on the London stage. Why's that? Because it's about Nye Bevan, who as Minister of Health in the postwar socialist Labour government set up the Nationa…
It's election year so the gaze of British theatre turns towards the National Health Service. But, no, this month's plays do not examine the parlous state of doctors and hospitals today, but …
We've all heard of the metaphorical madwoman in the attic, but what about the symbolic unexploded bomb under the roof, tucked away among the junk, accumulating dust and lying quietly undisco…
It's a sign of the times that German director Thomas Ostermeier's West End debut is his production of An Enemy of the People, which has been rep at his Schaubühne theatre for over a decade.…
Nowadays it seems that it's the fringe and Off-West End venues that are keeping the spirit of international theatre alive in London. Whereas much mainstream big-name theatre feels increasing…
In West End theatre, the cliché that nothing succeeds like success keeps the wheels of commerce turning merrily. But just because a show is selling lots of tickets, and has generated loads …
Jane Austen is not just a classic novelist " she's a cultural institution and a national treasure. Since the 1990s there has been an avalanche not only of straight adaptations of her novels …
This transfer of Jack Thorne's hit National Theatre play to the West End has been hailed as meta-theatre on steroids. The St Martin's Lane venue, which was once called the New Theatre, hoste…
The recent news that Russia's Supreme Court has banned the "international LGBT movement", describing it as an "extremist organisation" and raiding nightclubs frequented by gay people, has br…
Playwright Polly Stenham had a meteoric rise with this play, her award-winning 2007 debut which she wrote aged 19 and whose original Royal Court cast featured Lyndsay Duncan and Matt Smit…
Androids no longer dream of electric sheep " instead they inhabit our dreams. Whether it is novels such as Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun or Ian McEwan's Machines Like Me, or films like …
Nobodies who kill somebodies: let's make a list. Okay, there's Lee Harvey Oswald (JFK), James Earl Ray (MLK) and Mark Chapman (John Lennon). But what about the man who shot Mahatma Gandhi? W…
Remember what a first date feels like? Awkward. Exciting. Awkward. Intriguing. Awkward. Difficult. Yes, it's a mixture of emotions, often between the desire to be liked and the frustration o…
Okay, let's start with a definition: it is said that sex is what you have between your legs, and gender is what you have between your ears. Certainly, the emotional experience of falling in …
Success always opens doors. Ever since the HBO drama Succession was lauded as a huge international hit, one of its writers and producers, Lucy Prebble, has been a hot property. Although I pe…