A new revival of The Circle is a reminder of a dramatist who smuggled vital messages into broad crowdpleasers Never trust what dramatists say about themselves. Noël Coward spent decades d…
Actor, archivist of the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, and director, with a long career in theatre, film and televisionThe actor and director Murray Melvin, who has died aged 90, had a rich …
Thirty directors from all over Europe converged on Greece for a showcase of its fizzing new talent that even included a play about the Nazis by Tony Kushner. What did they learn on this five…
There are invigorating versions of Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma! and Cabaret in London " and some enticing new dramas coming " yet theatre risks being cut off from its past David Hare has argued…
He presented himself as a message-free entertainer but, 50 years after his death, it is time to reconsider the variety of the great playwright's work Anniversaries offer a chance for reappra…
In a shocking attack, the ballet director Marco Goecke smeared dog excrement in the face of Wiebke Hüster in retaliation for her review. Yet it isn't the first time an artist has assaulted …
Dramatist and screenwriter whose best-known stage play, Alpha Beta, is a scorching study of marriage and morality As a passionate lover of football, in particular of Liverpool FC, Ted Whiteh…
It was a box-office hit directed by John Gielgud and created turmoil on stage and off. Now, the 1964 Broadway staging has inspired The Motive and the Cue, a new play by Jack Thorne In 1964 R…
Paul Mescal and Patsy Ferran battle it out in the Almeida's new production of a poetic drama whose ambiguity is enthralling Tennessee Williams's old bus keeps on running. The Almeida's produ…
Pitting the capital against the regions is a cynical political ploy and the Arts Council's cuts are a catastrophe for new writing " as well as the entertainment industry The resignation of R…
Costumes, props, posters and archive footage all feature in an exhibition that leaves you itching to see some shows again Weave your way round the new exhibition Re:Imagining Musicals at the…
An immense task awaits the Royal Shakespeare Company's new artistic directors who must attract top talent, prioritise verse-speaking and combine classic repertory and contemporary drama It i…
The whodunnit starring Saoirse Ronan is a fun spoof but tinkers with history and never captures the unique way Agatha Christie's play fascinated audiences in the 50s The smell of greasepaint…
Mike Bartlett's 2014 play anticipated a constitutional crisis, while playwrights including Shakespeare and Chekhov have shown how traumatic a transfer of power can be What does the future ho…
The monarch was sympathetically depicted by dramatists and at a 1999 production of Oklahoma! her eyes lit up when she recalled her own theatrical outings "I've never been fond of the theatre…
Michael Frayn's comedy is not just extremely funny but also acknowledges the fragile artifice of order " in theatre and the world beyond All plays, wrote critic John Lahr, are dated. He mean…
The two titans of modern drama were both cricket obsessives. What if they had faced the fast bowlers together? Playwright Shomit Dutta explains why he made it happen " with darkly comic dram…
An actor of innate tenderness and grace, Warner had a theatre career of two halves, each with superb performances at the RSC I have never forgotten my first sighting of David Warner, who has…
In our many meetings, the director's conversation was as invigorating as the way he led audiences through the night in his staging of The Mahabharata In 1979, Peter Brook made a film of Gurd…
Sam Mendes's The Lehman Trilogy and Marianne Elliott's Company took 10 prizes between them and demonstrated the power of UK subsidised theatre "Brits Triumph on Broadway" is one of those new…
A meeting of minds at the National Theatre showed ways to stage drama along environmentally sound lines. But is everyone on board? 'Theatre will be measured by its response to the climate em…
A provocative new film at Cannes featuring Ian McKellen attempts to de-romanticise the Dane but lags behind what theatre productions have been telling us for decades TS Eliot called Hamlet "…
Beth Steel's The House of Shades unites national politics and private lives through the fortunes of a working-class family from 1965 to 2019 Old myths die hard. One of the greatest in theatr…
Gregory Doran has achieved much at the RSC and directed some fine productions. Let's have an actor in charge next: how about Adjoa Andoh or Simon Russell Beale? When the boss of a big theatr…
Bertie Carvel is brilliant in The 47th, Mike Bartlett's ingenious play about the former US president, but the real parallel is not with the Bard's kings but his hollow braggarts If you want …