Anger can appear in various forms, but is it always justified? After all, most would see anger as a destructive force. Occasionally, it is so strong that it amounts to a wild outburst: this is what Penelope Skinner’s Linda is. It subjects us to the life of Linda Wilde, a middle-aged, award-winning marketing director for […]
It is rare a director is so sympathetic to their chosen text; therefore, remember Liz Stevenson’s name. Too often a classic work is smothered by conservatism and theatrical brocade—this production of Barbarians is the opposite, where every direction furthers the purposes of the source. Stevenson’s interpretation is a great symbiosis of text and performance. Of […]
Did this play deserve its Olivier Award nomination last year? Absolutely. Its development of character, slow revelation of plot and bitingly black humour make James Fritz’s work a triumph of new writing. The story revolves around two parents, Di and David (Kate Maravan and Jonathan McGuinness), whose son Jack has been beaten up on his […]
Belarus Free Theatre can claim that not only is it underground in form but also in substance. What it discusses in its plays is subversive: it challenges basic principles that constitute modern society. Of course, the substance of the underground exists on a spectrum, all the way from Dostoevsky to VICE magazine. After seeing four […]
It has a more authentic angle than most adaptations of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s acclaimed novel, but this musical version by Ruby in the Dust cannot overcome the text’s inherent problems and its attempt at a modern reworking lacks unity. There is a danger in adapting The Great Gatsby: for a story about the dark underside […]
People are shouting to me about the dangers of capitalism and I think I am liking it—let me explain how I got here: the Belarus Free Theatre, an unregistered, underground theatre company, have partnered with the Young Vic all the way from their home country to bring Staging a Revolution: a series of performances centred […]
This is not the youthful adrenaline shot that it sets out to be. Stoppard’s abridgement of Shakespeare tragedy-laden comedy is marred by poor direction choices, although the performances, as in the NYT’s other shows, are of a remarkably high calibre given the REP cast is handes their hardest material yet with the Merchant of Venice. […]
This is a tricky and charming work. The National Youth Theatre has made something first-rate and empoweringly original with Consensual. It is a discussion of sex but simultaneously a discussion of that discussion, critical of the current discourse yet accepting of a world transformed by porn and marketed sexualisation. Evan Placey’s script is punchy: it […]