Latest Articles - Page 2 of 680

18May

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

Player – Riverside Studios

Actors like nothing more than talking about themselves and their profession, and this wonderful little play at Riverside Studios, written by Matthew Lyon, is an ode to the joys but mainly pains of trying to make a career in the theatre. It is almost all written in rhyming couplets in a faux Shakespearean style, which makes it a delight to listen to. Lyon himself plays the actor struggling through the various stages of life in the theatre from initial stirrings of interest at school and home, not always encouraged, through the agony of endless auditions until at last reaching the zenith of actually having a script for the part of “seventh spear carrier on the left”. Ola Forman plays all the other pa...

Mother Courage and Her Children – Shakespeare’s Globe

18May

By Charlotte MansfieldNo Comments

London

Mother Courage and Her Children – Shakespeare’s Globe

Brecht without being Brechtian, Mother Courage at the Globe is an array of sound and colour that departs from the play's theatrical roots. Brecht's classic play about the effect of war was written in response to the rise of Nazi Germany, set centuries earlier, to create distance so that the audience could observe the events without connecting to them. Anna Jordan's translation brings the play into the modern era, referencing drones and missiles, the distance instead achieved by changing the names of countries to colours. We see Blue soldiers fighting Purple ones, with the Orange revolutionaries rebelling against both. In the midst of this is Mother Courage, played by the Globe’s Artistic Director Michelle Terry. She is a war profiteer. Beginning the play with three children and...

18May

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Guys and Dolls – Festival Theatre

Southern Light’s Guys and Dolls arrives at the Festival Theatre with all the confidence and swagger of a Broadway classic that knows it has survived generations. Frank Loesser’s score still sparkles, Damon Runyon’s world of gamblers and hustlers still charms, and Southern Light throw absolutely everything they have at it. This is a huge production, packed with colour, movement and musical ambition, with a cast of around seventy determined to fill one of Scotland’s biggest auditoriums. And for long stretches, they succeed. Directed by Andy Johnston, with musical direction by Fraser Hume and choreography by Janice Bruce, the production understands that Guys and Dolls lives or dies on energy. The Festival Theatre stage is enormous and unforgiving, capable of swallowing le...

15May

By Klervi GavetNo Comments

London

Visite – Coronet Theatre

This is the second time I’ve come across the work of physical theatre company Teatro dei Gordi. The first was Pandora, a production set in a public bathroom so funny, strange and precise that I spent months recommending it to people afterwards. I was looking forward to seeing what they would do next. Visite did not disappoint. Teatro dei Gordi makes theatre that reminds you we speak in many ways. Words are only one of them. There is also movement, rhythm. In Visite, the company turns its attention to time: how it shapes friendships, bodies, habits, and the way joy and grief slowly accumulate inside a life. Inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the story of Philemon and Baucis, the piece follows a group of friends from young adulthood into old age, tracing decades of shared life with r...

Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil – Royal Lyceum Theatre

15May

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil – Royal Lyceum Theatre

You could attend Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil at the Lyceum for Ricky Ross alone and leave entirely satisfied. Fortunately, this exquisitely produced new work gives us much more besides. Part gig theatre, part football odyssey, part meditation on grief and belonging, this is one of those deeply Scottish productions that somehow becomes universal precisely because it is so rooted in place. Cowdenbeath may be the setting, but emotionally this could be any town we have tried to escape and yet remain permanently tethered to. Adapted by Gary McNair from Ron Ferguson’s original story, the play follows Sally, played quite brilliantly, with warmth, intelligence and emotional precision by Dawn Steele. After leaving Cowdenbeath behind to build a new life in London as a solicito...

Sherlock Holmes – Regents Park Open Air Theatre

15May

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

Sherlock Holmes – Regents Park Open Air Theatre

Sherlock Holmes is back in his home place at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre from the 2nd May to the 6th June. This atmospheric theatre is a perfect backdrop for Conan Doyle’s favourite detective to come alive. And he does not disappoint. Horwood’s’ writing and Sean Holmes theatrical and high energy adaptation of Sherlock, captures the presence of this serendipitous sleuth as he and Watson unravel another mystery, under a damp lit moody sky of Victorian London. The set appears simplistic in the round but don’t be fooled as there is so much going on. The scene changes are rapid and unfolds in front of your eyes. This is a brisk moving story line and at times it was difficult to keep up with the switch in movement, characters and the unfolding plot. In some scenes the lines were deli...

The Last Man – Southwark Playhouse Elephant

15May

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

The Last Man – Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Deep down in an underground bunker made of concrete and reinforced steel, our unnamed protagonist (played by Lex Lee on press night, alternating the role with Nabi Brown) is seeking shelter from a zombie apocalypse caused by a mysterious unknown virus. As he stocks up his new abode with bulk bought food and supplies, some audience members may feel a shudder of deja vu as there is a touch of the COVID-19 about it all. But not to worry – there aren’t any Zoom quizzes or clashing of pots and pans this time. Photo: Rich Lakos/ArenaPAL Instead, The Last Man, a new English translation of Jishik Kim and Seungyeon Kwon’s Korean musical with dramaturgy from Jethro Compton, follows the protagonist as he reckons with what it takes to survive against all odds and leave the life he once knew behi...

15May

By Zandra OdetundeNo Comments

London

Noughts & Crosses – Hackney Empire

Noughts & Crosses arrives on stage with traces of something oxymoronically freshly familiar. Adapted from Malorie Blackman’s landmark novel, this production takes a story many already know and makes it feel sharper, stranger, more physical, and more painful in the flesh. Set in an alternate society where racial power is reversed, the play follows Sephy and Callum, whose relationship unfolds in a world determined to divide them. The production’s strongest moments are visual and physical. The first hanging scene is spectacularly staged, with the use of red creating beautiful and horrific image. The physical theatre is some of the best I have seen in a long time, especially in the sequence of the bombing, where movement and violence seem to collapse into one another. With only ...

14May

By Klervi GavetNo Comments

London

BalletBoyz at 25 – Sadler’s Wells

What does a 25-year retrospective owe us? Nostalgia, certainly. A greatest-hits reel, perhaps. What BalletBoyz offer instead at Sadler’s Wells is something more rigorous: a map of possibility. Photo: Hugo Glendinning Curated from works commissioned since 2001 by Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, BalletBoyz at 25 resists the flattening instinct of retrospectives. The evening moves with intent across forms, aesthetics, and dramaturgies, not as a sampler but as an argument. Movement is not one language. It is many, and they do not always agree. The opening triptych, Critical Mass, Motor Cortex, and Ripple, operates almost like a study in physics. Bodies fold, suspend, and redistribute weight as if governed by invisible laws. In Motor Cortex, choreographed by Seirian Griffiths with li...

14May

By Zain RussellNo Comments

London

An Ideal Husband – Lyric Hammersmith

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde is given a fresh and contemporary adaptation at Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, blending Wilde’s classic wit with modern cultural references and humour. The story follows London high society as the mysterious Mrs Cheveley returns, using blackmail and manipulation to gain influence and expose secrets hidden beneath society’s polished surface. Visually, the production is striking. Although the set is relatively minimal, it feels grand enough to reflect the wealth and prestige of London society. The elegant tiled flooring and open staging successfully create the atmosphere of lavish drawing rooms. The costumes are another major highlight, filled with sophistication and extravagance that perfectly capture the glamour and excess associated with the upper classes. ...