Theatre
Verbal diarrhoea
In Beckett’s Happy Days a prattling Irish granny is buried waist-deep, and later neck-deep, in a refuse tip whose detritus…
Bloody minded
Tristan Bernays loves Hollywood blockbusters. His new play, Boudica, is an attempt to put the blood-and-guts vibe of the action…
Speech therapy
Oslo opened in the spring of 2016 at a modest venue in New York. It moved to Broadway and this…
Age concern
Stephen Sondheim’s Follies takes a huge leap into the past. It’s 1971 and we meet two middle-aged couples who knew…
Made in Port Talbot
Port Talbot, on the coast of South Wales, is literally overlooked. Most experience the town while flying over it on…
Keeping it in the family
A new orthodoxy governs the casting process in Hollywood. An actor’s ethnicity must match the character’s. If you extend this…
Moral maze
Una is a psychological drama about a woman who was abused by a man when she was 12, and who…
Animal or vegetable?
Against by Christopher Shinn sets out to unlock the secrets of America’s spiritual malaise. Two main settings represent the wealthy…
Moor and more
In 1824 an ambitious teenage actor fled to England from his native New York where he had been beaten up…
The many sides of satire
Brexit the Musical is a peppy satire written by Chris Bryant (not the MP, he’s a lawyer). Musically the show…
London calling
What is the Edinburgh Fringe? It’s a sabbatical, a pit stop, a pause-and-check-the-map opportunity for actors who don’t quite know…
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,…
Show up and show off
The Edinburgh Festival was founded as a response to war. The inaugural event, held in 1947, was the brainchild of…
Heavy-handed
Oliver Cotton is an RSC stalwart who looks like a man born to greatness. Google him. He has the fearless…
Out of sorts at the RSC
The RSC’s summer blockbuster is about Queen Anne. It’s called Queen Anne. It opens at the Inns of Court where…
Three hours of vomit, fellatio and menstruation: Isabelle Huppert on Phaedra(s)
A blushing James Woodall is riveted by Isabelle Huppert’s performance in Phaedra(s)
Derek Jacobi as Mercutio is half-genius, half-prank: Romeo and Juliet at the Garrick reviewed
Out come the stars in Kenneth Branagh’s Romeo and Juliet. He musters a well-drilled, celebrity-ridden crew but they can’t quite…
I came out feeling euphoric and disorientated: Young Vic’s Blue/Orange reviewed
Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall enjoys the dubious status of a modern classic. A black mental-health patient, Christopher, is about to…
The Royal Court is the Eddie the Eagle of theatre
If there were an Eddie the Eagle award for theatre — to recognise large reputations built on minuscule achievements —…
Wasn’t Lawrence of Arabia more annoying than this new play suggests?
T.E. Lawrence is like the gap-year student from hell. He visits a country full of exotic barbarians and after a…
A literary lap dance: Doctor Faustus reviewed
Great excitement for play-goers as a rare version of a theological masterpiece arrives in the West End. Doctor Faustus stars…
Down and Out in Paris and London is a chav safari
Down and Out in Paris and London is a brilliant specimen from a disreputable branch of writing: the chav safari,…
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)
Was there a cover-up over Shakespeare’s death?
How did Shakespeare kick the bucket? Lloyd Evans considers the evidence
The Heckler: the Shakespeare anniversary has stripped the Bard of his beauty
The feeding frenzy over the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death has reached its peak. Recently we’ve had Shakespeare’s complete…
