National Theatre
Has Bruce Norris bitten off more than he can chew?
Bruce Norris is a firefighter among dramatists. He runs towards danger while others sprint in the other direction. His Pulitzer-winning…
A winning hoax: When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other reviewed
The NT’s new play is an update of Pamela, a sexploitation novel by Samuel Richardson. It opens with Stephen Dillane…
What a relief we can finally admit Jimmy Porter was a pain in the neck
Gary Raymond must have been wondering if it was the end of a promising career — curtains. He was starring…
A horror show that appeals to the intellect but not the gut: The Tell-Tale Heart reviewed
The Tell-Tale Heart is based on a teeny-weeny short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The full text appears in the…
![David Schwimmer has produced a new film of Alexander Zeldin’s play LOVE for the BBC. [Photo: Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune/TNS via Getty Images]](https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2018/12/8Declead.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275)
David Schwimmer on his new BBC film
There is very little art about modern poverty, because who wants to know? It is barely acknowledged, unless there is…
Women should boycott David Hare’s slanderous new play: I’m Not Running reviewed
Sir David Hare’s weird new play sets out to chronicle the history of the Labour movement from 1996 to the…
The gentle side of Bruckner: Rotterdam Philharmonic’s Prom reviewed
It’s intelligent, enjoyable, beautiful to look at and funny in unexpected places, yet Othello at the Globe didn’t quite meet…
If we offer Ian McKellan a peerage, will he promise not to inflict his King Lear on us again?
Gandalf, also known as Ian McKellen, has awarded himself another lap of honour by bringing King Lear back to London.…
Extraordinary power and simplicity: Lehman Trilogy reviewed
Stefano Massini’s play opens with a man in a frock-coat reaching New York after six weeks at sea. The year…
This adaptation of Miss Julie is a textbook lesson in how to kill a classic
Polly Stenham starts her overhaul of Strindberg’s Miss Julie with the title. She gives the ‘Miss’ a miss and calls…
Why has the National given over its largest stage to one of the nation’s smallest talents?
The National has made its largest stage available to one of the nation’s smallest talents. If Brian Friel had been…
A dated and remote two-hour polemic basking in #MeToo topicality: The Writer reviewed
Ella Hickson’s last play at the Almeida was a sketch show about oil. Her new effort uses the same episodic…
A glorious theatrical feast at the National: Foodwork reviewed
There is a restaurant on the stage at the National Theatre in London. It is called Foodwork, and it is…
An overrated news satire directed by an inexplicably popular director: Network reviewed
The inexplicable popularity of Ivo Van Hove continues. The director’s latest visit to the fairies involves an updated version of…
Does disability make a difference to art – or does art transcend disability?
The moment you invite friends to some new ‘cutting-edge’ disability theatre or film, most swallow paroxysms of social anxiety. What…
Family planning
Beginning starts at the end. A Crouch End party has just finished and the sitting room is a waste tip…
Animal or vegetable?
Against by Christopher Shinn sets out to unlock the secrets of America’s spiritual malaise. Two main settings represent the wealthy…
Starting block
Conor McPherson’s new play is set in dust-bowl Minnesota in 1934. We’re in a fly-blown boarding house owned by skint,…
The good Palestinian
Shubbak, meaning ‘window’ in Arabic, is a biennial festival taking place in various venues across London. The brochure reads like…
This year's must-see Shakespeare? Four hours of history in Dutch
James Woodall talks to the Belgian director Ivo van Hove, who has brought a swathe of Shakespeare’s history plays to the stage in Dutch (four hours of it)
Les Blancs at the Olivier is good-ish, but it won't be a classic
Les Blancs had a troubled birth. In 1965 several unfinished drafts of the play were entrusted by its dying author,…
Sarah Kane's Cleansed is a thin, vicious pantomime
Big fuss about Cleansed at the Dorfman. Talk of nauseous punters rushing for the gangways may have perversely delighted the…
Damon Albarn’s wonder.land will not succeed at the National. It might work in Vegas
Damon Albarn and Rufus Norris present a musical version of Alice in Wonderland. A challenging enterprise even if they’d stuck…
Tricycle’s Ben Hur is magnificent in its superficiality - a masterpiece of nothing
It’s the target that makes the satire as well as the satirist. Is the subject powerful, active, relevant and menacing?…
Why is there no one at the National Theatre preventing these duds getting staged?
Wallace Shawn is a lovely old sausage. A stalwart of American theatre, he’s taken cameo roles in classic movies like…
