Othello from a military perspective? It sounds like yet another director’s far-fetched take on Shakespeare’s endlessly adaptable plays. In fact, it’s not. The dress may be modern, the bunkers concrete and the guns automatics, but Nicholas Hytner’s brilliant version of Othello at the National Theatre slots right into place with the text. This is a…
There is no small measure of comedy in watching one National Treasure taking a shot at another. Playwright Alan Bennett (of History Boys fame) could well be considered one of Britain’s National Treasures, with his uncanny ability to capture the essence of the English. And one of their favourite pastimes is to visit National Trust…
The lights come up. Tumultuous applause. A full house audience undecided only whether to give a standing ovation or not. It’s a moment when most actors can breathe a sigh of relief. Not John Lithgow, playing the title role in the National Theatre production of The Magistrate, however. No, he has to take a deep…
There’s a reason you have never seen a production of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. It’s not his best play. It’s not even his, or rather, his alone, but probably a collaboration with Thomas Middleton. An awkward work that falls between tragedy and fable, it’s not surprising that it is seldom seen: huge cast, lots of…
Leo Tolstoy famously said, in the opening lines of his novel Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” That may not be quite true, seeing people laugh with a sense of recognition at the play The Last of the Haussmans. No-one’s family can be quite like…
Curious, isn’t it, that we can understand how a blue sky can make one happy, but find it more difficult to see why five red cars could give one a super good day? For Christopher Boone though, while red cars are good, a yellow car heralds all the gloom of a dark storm cloud. Describing…
Can Themba’s achingly sad South African fable, The Suit, is performed at the Young Vic until mid-June in a production directed by the legendary Peter Brook. It forms part of a unique collaboration of eight top London venues and international producers to showcase the different cultural communities in London. Themba’s short story, adapted for…
Rappers write rubbish lyrics, right? No, that’s not a tongue twister, but it’s pretty much what I thought until I happened upon Kate Tempest, and her play Wasted which is on at the Roundhouse Studio Theatre until next Saturday. It’s some of the most inspiring, energetic and poetic new writing I’ve seen in a long…
What to do when the rain is lashing down on a Sunday? Head over to the V&A Museum where for another five Sundays at 2pm there is a free screening of a play filmed live in performance. These screenings celebrate the 20th anniversary of the National Video Archive of Performance. Remember the Theatre Museum, which…
A comedy about Stalin? It sounds outrageous, and in fact it is. Dark, bitter, savage, and very clever, Collaborators is a new play by John Hodge about the Russian playwright Mikhail Bulgakov, who was given a poisoned chalice by the regime when asked to write a play celebrating the life of Stalin. The time was…
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