Theatre
Racism and the RSC: why I was a sitting duck for the arts mob
Our ducks are back. Two wild mallard have spent the last five springs on the brook which gurgles past us…
Some fairly rich people rip off some very rich people. Who are we rooting for? Quiz reviewed
Quiz by James Graham looks at the failed attempt in 2001 to swindle a million quid from an ITV game…
A gripping new play with a Michael Fish-y narrative: Pressure reviewed
David Haig’s play Pressure looks at the Scottish meteorologist, James Stagg, who advised Eisenhower about the weather in the week…
Flouncy, tasteless and unsubtle – I loved it: Ruthless! The Musical reviewed
Ruthless! The Musical is a camp extravaganza about ambitious actors stranded in small-town America. Sylvia St Croix, a pushy agent,…
The Plough and the Stars at the Lyric Hammersmith shows Sean O’Casey is one of the greats
The Plough and the Stars by Sean O’Casey looks at the Irish nationalist movement during the events of Easter 1916.…
The black art of acting
I go to the theatre but rarely because I am overpowered by even mediocre acting and find it exhausting. Theatre…
A beautiful but bizarre show, beset by ‘great ideas’: Summer and Smoke reviewed
Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams dates from the late 1940s. He hadn’t quite reached the peaks of sentimental delicacy…
Rory Kinnear is less Macbeth, more a tetchy manager of an Amazon warehouse
The Best Man by Gore Vidal is set during a fictional American election in 1960. Two gifted candidates seek their…
There’s much to adore about the Old Vic’s Fanny and Alexander
Fanny & Alexander opens like a Chekhov comedy and turns into an Ibsen tragedy. Ingmar Bergman’s movie script, adapted by…
The former head of the RSC finds cause for optimism in the Arts Council cuts
He looks like an absent-minded watchmaker, or a homeless chess champion, or a stray physics genius trying to find his…
If I were a detective looking for serial killers I’d stake out Frozen
Frozen starts with a shrink having a panic attack. She hyperventilates into her hand-bag and then gets drunk on an…
The York Realist feels like it’s been written by a newcomer at a creative writing weekend
The Donmar’s new show, The York Realist, dates from 2001. The programme notes tell us that the playwright, Peter Gill,…
The dangers of taking a blind friend to see Fifty Shades of Grey
Audio description, or AD, as it is fondly called, is coming of age. Once consigned to the utility room of…
The last survivor of The Birthday Party’s 1958 première remembers the traumatic first night
‘Mad, wearying and inconsequential gabble,’ sighed the Financial Times in 1958. ‘One quails in slack-jawed dismay.’ Here’s the FT at…
Why do critics claim to adore the waffle-fest that is Long Day’s Journey into Night?
It’s considered the great masterpiece of 20th-century American drama. Oh, come off it. Long Day’s Journey into Night is a…
Bold, in its way, but Ben Whishaw is ill-suited to Shakespeare: Julius Caesar reviewed
Nicholas Hytner’s new show is a modern-dress Julius Caesar, heavily cut and played in the round. It runs for two…
There are many scenes in this overlong play that consist, literally, of drivel: John reviewed
The NT’s new production, John, is by a youngish American playwright, Annie Baker. We Brits tend to assume that ‘john’…
Unlike most Pinter plays, this one doesn’t bore or baffle: The Birthday Party reviewed
The Birthday Party is among Pinter’s earliest and strangest works. It deconstructs the conventions of a repertory thriller but doesn’t…
Another American playwright felled by her own trophy collection: Belleville reviewed
A pattern emerges. A hot American playwright, dripping with prestigious awards, is honoured in London with a transfer of their…
The latest astonishing achievement from the creators of War Horse
The Twilight Zone, an American TV show from the early 1960s, reinvented the ghost story for the age of space…
Sarah Vine: Why Jeremy Corbyn is the new Oliver Cromwell
Owing to the spectacular uselessness of Ticketmaster, my son missed out on his birthday treat, seats for Hamilton at the…
As a musical, it’s overwhelming – politically, it’s an outrage: Hamilton reviewed
It’s all about the rhythm. Hamilton is a musical that tells the story of America’s foundation through the medium of…
Time to update our notions of disability and quit with the pity – and Tiny Tim
Here we go again. Partridges in pear trees. Lovely big Christmas turkey. The Queen’s speech. And then, at some point…