Friday Night Love Poem, the acclaimed play from female-led Crossline Theatre, is now streaming for a limited season via The Space Arts Centre, on-demand until Saturday 22 January 2022, including a watch-party and post-show Q&A with the creatives on Friday 21 January. Time to get booking!
‘Ruth Wilson is strong casting in the central role’: HEDDA GABLER – National Theatre At Home (Online review)
Ruth Wilson is strong casting in the central role with a, for once, restrained Ivo van Hove directing.
‘Relentlessly upbeat & cheerful to watch’: ANYTHING GOES (Online review)
Light as a souffle but such a delight. It’s doubtful whether there has ever been a classier bit of froth than this Cole Porter show.
‘Immerses us totally in a community facing indescribable loss’: INTO THE NIGHT (Online review)
We are in Cornwall, forty years ago, on the 19 December 1981. A lifeboat in Penlee Station answers a distress call, but never returned, with the loss of sixteen lives.
‘A modern fairy tale with attitude’: SHREK THE MUSICAL (Online review)
The Shrek franchise opts for a modern-day spin on the traditional form, undermining expectations and undercutting some of the more winsome aspects with one-liners and witty put-downs.
‘Focuses on the battle in the trenches & between the classes’: INTO BATTLE (Online review)
The scene is set at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1910. A group of exceptional young men finish their education as the shadow of war slowly approaches.
NEWS: Online lockdown hit Viper Squad gets its immersive live premiere
Schematic Theatre’s award-winning online lockdown hit Viper Squad gets its live premiere in an immersive action-adventure at London’s CoLab Tavern, running from 27 January to 22 March 2022.
‘I would like to see how this audio drama would play out onstage: WINTER SOLSTICE – BBC Sounds (Online review)
The holidays have always been a time of rich pickings for dramatists, bringing together people (pre-Covid at least) who probably avoid each other for the rest of the year.
Five of my favourite theatre productions of 2021
We all know how we feel about 2021. What we need to do is celebrate what made it fabulous so here is my pick of what the year had to offer.
‘Heartwarming storytelling about human survival’: LIFE OF PI – West End
I’ve also had some really wonderful nights in the theatre that I wouldn’t have missed for the world. These included the long-delayed West End transfer of Life of Pi.
‘Enhanced by crisp editing & two towering performances’: DEATH OF ENGLAND: FACE TO FACE – National Theatre (Online review)
The Death Of England sequence by Clint Dyer and Roy Williams has had an interesting history. Starting life as a ten-minute microplay film courtesy of the Royal Court.
WATCH NOW: Documentary IN Exchange shows the journey of an Offie-nominated French classic
David Furlong, the Mauritian-born actor and director currently directing at the Young Vic (Five Plays 2021), celebrates Exchange Theatre’s 15th anniversary by taking audiences behind the scenes of their 2018 production of Molière’s Misanthrope.
‘After The Hairy Ape, I approached this with a degree of trepidation’: ANNA CHRISTIE (Online review)
Anna Christie, which predates The Hairy Ape, won the 1922 Pulitzer prize for drama and therefore had to have something going for it.
PHOTOS: New play Cratchit gives voice to Dickensian injustices past & present
Cratchit, Alexander Knott’s spin-off from A Christmas Carol that picks up the story of Scrooge’s impoverished clerk, has just opened at London’s Park Theatre. Check out the trailer plus first-look photos of Olivier Award winner John Dagleish in action.
‘Great writing can be interpreted & reinterpreted in any number of ways’: CONSTELLATIONS – Donmar Warehouse (Online review)
There’s a world (indeed, a universe) of possibilities in this intriguing play about decisions and repercussions.
NEWS: John Dagleish returns to the character of Bob Cratchit in new rewriting of Charles Dickens
Olivier Award winner John Dagleish takes the title role in Cratchit, an astute rewriting of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol which has its live premiere at the Park Theatre this December.
‘A fine octet of actors work well as an ensemble’: INTO BATTLE (Online review)
Remembrance Day seemed a perfect moment to review a production set just before and during the First World War, Hugh Salmon’s finely rendered Into Battle.
‘A story of growth & connection at its heart’: RICE – Orange Tree Theatre
Michele Lee’s Rice is a deeply ambitious play, populated by numerous characters and performed by two actors.
‘The tension builds because we cannot see anything’: Some of Us Exist in the Future (Online review)
One of the three Papatango New Writing prize-winning audio plays now available to listen to at a theatre near you, Nkenna Akunna’s Some of Us Exist in the Future is an ambitious piece which centres on queer immigrant Chiamaka.
‘Listen in a darkened room’: BLIND – London Horror Festival (Online review) ★★★★
Halloween season is once more upon us and the London Horror Festival has plenty of macabre productions to satisfy the most dedicated aficionado. One show that stands out from the rest online is Blind by Ryots Productions.