1,376 stories by "Aleks Sierz"
Trauma is the source of identity politics. In the case of African-Americans, the experience of brutal slavery, exploitative colonialism and violent racism are defining experiences in their h…
Climate-change activist Greta Thunberg is great at doing two things: irritating complacent adults and inspiring idealistic teens. In Sarah Middleton's debut comedy, Shewolves, which was firs…
James Graham's Dear England at the National Theatre: Joseph Fiennes plays a mesmerizing soccer manager in this sport-of-the-nation drama
The full version of the article James Graham's "Dear…
Peter Morgan's Patriots at the Noël Coward Theatre: award-winning story of Putin's triumph is vivid but unreal
The full version of the article Peter Morgan's Patriots At The Noël Cowa…
Can you enjoy a ghost story during summer? Usually the idea of a haunted house suggests images of dark winter nights, thunder and lightning, and howling wolves. These atmospheric factors are…
Imagine yourself in a remote place: it could be a mountaintop, or a lost village, or the Amazon. These are the locations that Simon McBurney and his Complicité theater company take us to wi…
We are watching history being made: after decades of being in the shadows, queer drama is now singing and dancing into the mainstream. Theatre after theatre is staging stories about queer, t…
Is it possible to successfully challenge naturalism in British theatre today? At a time when audiences crave feelgood dramas, uplifting musicals and classic well-made plays, there is very li…
Brian Friel's classic play about the blending of Paganism and Christianity in 1930s Ireland is more than 30 years old " and I remember seeing the original production from Dublin's Abbey Thea…
The popularity of plays that feature trauma is certainly a trend in British theatre today. But is this a good thing? On the one hand, staging stories of sexual assault might offer consolatio…
little scratch (deliberately styled in lower case) is adapted by Miriam Battye from Rebecca Watson's 2020 debut novel, and was first staged at the Hampstead Theatre in 2021. It now transfers…
The Downstairs studio space of the Hampstead Theatre manages to continue to offer an opportunity to go beyond the usual naturalism of traditional storytelling, and this is exemplified by Cor…
Wow! James Norton naked! Wow! New play by Ivo van Hove. Wow! It's four hours long. Wow! Wow! Wow! The much anticipated play of the year, an adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara's 700-page bestsell…
In Olivier Award-nominated actor and activist Danny Lee Wynter's Royal Court debut, the attractively titled Black Superhero, the ambitious theme of black queerness is explored through the co…
Empathetic revival of Zinnie Harris's 2000 play about a lost world and small island longings
The post Further Than the Furthest Thing, Young Vic appeared first on Aleks Sierz.
The memory play is a theatrical genre which allows the playwright to locate their characters in the here and now while at the same time travelling back in time. It is the form adopted by Bj…
Bjørg Vik's The Journey to Venice at the Finborough Theatre: Norwegian memory play is tender if slight
The full version of the article Bjørg Vik's "The Journey To Venice" At the Finbor…
Is anyone still nostalgic about their teen years? The coming-of-age drama is a staple of contemporary British theatre, but surely there is something just a bit too predictable about stories …
Has theatre's time passed? In Tim Crouch's latest 70-minute show, Truth's a Dog Must to Kennel, first staged at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh last year and now at Battersea Arts Cent…
Donmar Warehouse, London " until 25 March 2023 With the fast-approaching anniversary of the latest war in Europe, our culture's continued fascination with the second world war gets a contemp…
Is new writing becoming increasingly literary? Recently, some of the language being used by younger playwrights seems to me to be becoming too subtle, something to be savoured on the page ra…
The female monologue is a well-established contemporary theatre form, but often the content is predictable and sometimes clichéd. No such doubts come to mind with Laura Horton's latest play…
With the total loss of its Arts Council funding, Hampstead Theatre's future as a specialist new writing venue is in doubt. But before anything drastically changes, the playwrights and plays …
Culture which arrives from the margins to the mainstream is a classic phenomenon. In the case of Sam Steiner's Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons it has taken almost a decade for this two-ha…
Willy Hudson is a writer and performer from Exeter " his Willy Hudson Ltd theatre company advertises itself as making "fabulous queer theatrical extravaganzas to make you go ooh, argh and oh…
