The grounding comes in Kwame Kwei-Armah’s decision to transplant the play to 1950s Caribbean and in the casting of Nikki Amuka-Bird as Doctor Wangel’s second wife, Ellida giving her racial difference added weight as the family outsider and to her feelings of restlessness.
THE SEAGULL – Lyric Hammersmith ★★★
Simon Stephens’ version makes no bones about how an obsession for fame can lead to ruin, hell and damnation or all three. Adelayo Adedayo’s Nina is burning to be a ‘celebrity’, idolising Nicholas Gleaves’ driven novelist, Boris.
BEGINNING – National Theatre ★★★★
Whereas Heisenberg celebrates taking a chance on love, even in one’s dotage, Beginning seems, sotto voce, to be saying something interesting about class.
A DAY BY THE SEA – Southwark Playhouse ★★★
You win some, you lose some. Sometimes ‘forgotten gems’ are cast aside for good reason. Fashion, sensibilities, history – always changing.
HEISENBERG: The Uncertainty Principle – West End
I think I should start off by saying Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle that launches a brave new commercial venture in the West End by director Marianne Elliott and producer Chris Harper, had me hooked.
THE FALL – Royal Court Theatre ★★★★
“Theatre is important. Theatre has the most amazing ability to give people an understanding of what can often be very complex social issues by telling human stories, while at the same time speaking truth to power.”
THE FALL – Royal Court Theatre ★★★★
“Theatre is important. Theatre has the most amazing ability to give people an understanding of what can often be very complex social issues by telling human stories, while at the same time speaking truth to power.”
CHILD OF THE DIVIDE – Polka Theatre & touring ★★★★
Child of the Divide launches Bhuchar’s Boulevard, a new development on from the company, Tamasha, she founded with Kristine Landon-Smith in 1989 and which premiered Child of the Divide originally in 2006.
MACBETH – Barbican Theatre & touring ★★★★★
It is now a little over a year since director Yukio Ninagawa died and this revival of his Macbeth, arguably his greatest hit, certainly brought an extra emotional tug to the Barbican.
WHAT SHADOWS – Park Theatre ★★★
As a play, there is so much in What Shadows that touches on and echoes today’s myriad trouble spots, it could hardly be more topical.
AFTER THE REHEARSAL/PERSONA – Barbican Theatre ★★★
Having excavated Visconti (Ossessione), Ivo van Hove has now moved on to Ingmar Bergman. Much as I admire van Hove – and I do – I am a little perplexed as to why he’s involved himself quite so much in transferring the inscrutable into the literal.
THE MARCH ON RUSSIA – Orange Tree Theatre ★★★★
In David Storey’s The March of Russia, Up in Arms find a source of such acutely observed family, domestic pain and political pertinence as to set the heart racing afresh.
WINGS – Young Vic ★★★★
Fusing brilliant imaginative speculation with humour, in Natalie Abrahami’s revival, Wings becomes a deeply moving, ultimately even uplifting account of what it might feel like for a stroke victim, trapped inside a dysfunctioning brain.
WINGS – Young Vic ★★★★
Fusing brilliant imaginative speculation with humour, in Natalie Abrahami’s revival, Wings becomes a deeply moving, ultimately even uplifting account of what it might feel like for a stroke victim, trapped inside a dysfunctioning brain.
TROUBLE IN MIND – The Print Room at the Coronet ★★★★
With its peeling walls and echoes of proscenium grandeur, Alice Childress’s 1955 American classic in praise of theatre carries a wonderful sense of authenticity, even to some of its echoing acoustics.
THE BLINDING LIGHT – Jermyn Street Theatre ★★★★
Howard Brenton gives us a barn-storming role for the actor playing Strindberg – in this case, Jasper Britton – and the women who appear in his life.
OSLO – National Theatre & West End ★★★★
As any story going behind-the-scenes of history, Oslo gives audiences a thrilling and enthralling sense of being, for once, on the ‘inside’ of events. And Rogers keeps personalities and the narrative rattling along.
EUGENE ONEGIN – Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre of Russia ★★★★★
Moscow’s Vakhtangov Theatre’s filmed version of a live performance of the play of the novel by its artistic director, Rimas Tuminas has arrived, if only for one screening at the Barbican. One hopes there will be more.
INTERVIEW: Spotlight On… Ovalhouse’s Owen Calvert-Lyons
The Autumn Season at Ovalhouse explores the ‘unseen’ people in our communities: children in care, whistle-blowers, sex-workers, transgender people and asylum seekers.
DOUBT – Southwark Playhouse ★★★★
Doubt is a painful path to follow, even more so when it comes to religious belief. Shanley’s parable of doubt, first seen in 2005 and in Britain two years later, then carried under-currents in the US to do with George Bush’s second tenure of office. How much more so now would it resonate in the USA with today’s crusaders of certainty?