Theatre
Why does drama always end up sneering at religion?
Theo Hobson explores the enduring appeal that religion has for dramatists
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…
Kit-car Chekhov: Uncle Vanya at the Almeida reviewed
Director Robert Icke has this to say of Chekhov’s greatest masterpiece: ‘Let the electricity of now flow into the old…
A great, weird play to rival Shakespeare: Old Vic's The Master Builder reviewed
The Master Builder, if done properly, can be one of those theatrical experiences that make you wonder if the Greeks…
The Mother is meaningless - I predict great things for it
Florian Zeller has been reading Pinter. And Pinter started out in repertory thrillers where suspense was created by delaying revelations…
Serious, popular art: Peter Shaffer's Five Finger Exercise reviewed
A beautiful crumbling theatre in Notting Hill is under threat. The Coronet, which bills itself as the Print Room, faces…
Is there a difference between being prejudiced and being a connoisseur of prejudice?
Paul Minx ventures boldly into Tennessee Williams country with The Long Road South. It’s 1965 and the Price family are…
Fun, disturbing and ultimately forgettable: Hangmen at Wyndhams reviewed
It begins with a sketch. We’re in a prison in 1963 where Harry Wade, the UK’s second most famous hangman,…
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…
A rare moment of transcendence at the Royal Court
Illness forced Kim Cattrall to withdraw from Linda, the Royal Court’s new show, and Noma Dumezweni scooped up the debris…
Hold on, should we actors really be speaking for trans people?
Should actors be speaking for trans people?
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?…
Nottingham resuscitates a classic of the 60s literary avant-garde
Peter Robins reports from Nottingham on a unique adaptation of a novel by the literary innovator B.S. Johnson
Awards await this mostly terrific new Homecoming
Jamie Lloyd’s production of Pinter’s The Homecoming is a pile of terrific and silly ideas. Mostly terrific. The action takes…
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…
Kenneth Branagh’s The Winter’s Tale is better than any I can recall
Kenneth Branagh opens his West End tenancy with Shakespeare’s inexplicably popular The Winter’s Tale. We start in Sicily where Leontes…
How did this plotless goon-show wind up at the Royal Court?
One of the challenges of art is to know the difference between innovation and error. I wonder sometimes if the…
Theatre and transgression in Europe’s last dictatorship
Juan Holzmann goes underground in Minsk with the Belarus Free Theatre
Glyndebourne caters to the lower-middle classes not past-it toffs
What is Glyndebourne? A middle-aged Bullingdon. That’s a common view: a luxury bun fight for past-it toffs who glug champagne,…
Turning Alzheimer’s into theatre is like building a surfboard out of sawdust
Here are three truths about play-writing. A script without an interval will be structurally flawed. A vague, whimsical title means…
The Old Vic’s Pit Bar has fallen to the hipsters – Penny reviewed
Penny is an all-day café in the former Pit Bar in the basement of the Old Vic, a famous and…
The set's better than the characterisation: The Father at the Wyndham's reviewed
The Father, set in a swish Paris apartment, has a beautifully spare and elegant set. The stage is framed by…
It may have a meagre script and no plot but Farinelli and the King is still a major work of art
Philippe V was a Bourbon prince who secured the throne of Spain using his family connections. Claire van Kampen is…
Half-brilliant: Mr Foote’s Other Leg at Hampstead Theatre reviewed
Samuel Foote (1720–77) was a star of the 18th-century stage who avoided the censors by extemporising his performances. Today we’d…
Nicole Kidman is upstaged by everyone - even the set: Photograph 51 at the Noel Coward reviewed
Michael Grandage’s latest show is about an old snap. Geneticists regard the X-ray of the hydrated ‘B’ form of DNA…
