If you accept the documentary verbatim style of Jews. In Their Own Words at the Royal Court, and don’t mind the lack of any real drama, this is an intelligently crafted and committed piece of political theatre that tackles an issue too often swept under the carpet. But I’d love to see a proper play about the subject.
‘Throughout the play, I felt personally caught up in this family battlefield’: THE FEVER SYNDROME – Hampstead Theatre ★★★★
The first thing you notice upon entering the auditorium is the impressive dominating cross-section of the Myers’ family’s four-storey, ageing townhouse based in Manhattan.
‘Distinct voices ably portrayed’: THE MIKVAH PROJECT – Orange Tree Theatre (Radio review)
The Mikvah Project by Josh Azouz had originally got quite a way into its run at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond before lockdown took place.
JULIUS CAESAR – RSC, Stratford
It’s an accepted cliché that, whatever the prevailing political mood there is a Shakespeare play that adequately reflects, comments on or holds a mirror up to it. Like all the best clichés it has become so ingrained in the consciousness of theatregoers because it is largely true.
YEARS OF SUNLIGHT – Theatre503
This particular ‘new town’ was designed to rehouse the overspill population from the poorer parts of Liverpool but the forced creation of new communities is rarely so simple as that, and it is this impact that McLean explores here, by following the thread of a 30 year friendship.
INTERVIEW: Spotlight On… RSC actor (& producer) Alex Waldmann
Alex Waldmann is a veteran of the RSC and of Shakespeare productions in general so it was fascinating to get his insight – he’s also the founder of theatre company SEARED, whose premiere of Michael McLean’s Years of Sunlight opens this week at London’s Theatre503.
INTERVIEW: Spotlight On… RSC actor (& producer) Alex Waldmann
Alex Waldmann is a veteran of the RSC and of Shakespeare productions in general so it was fascinating to get his insight – he’s also the founder of theatre company SEARED, whose premiere of Michael McLean’s Years of Sunlight opens this week at London’s Theatre503.
NEWS: Michael McLean’s Years of Sunlight premieres at Theatre503
After this weekend’s Top Trumps mini-festival in response to the US presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, Lisa Spirling’s inaugural season as artistic director of London’s Theatre 503 officially gets under way next week with the world premiere of Years of Sunlight, a new play by Michael McLean presented by Seared Productions in association with Theatre 503.
ALL MY SONS – Rose Theatre, Kingston
Arthur Miller’s titanic All My Sons has been well served in recent years – the late Howard Davies reviving his National Theatre production to stunning effect in 2010 and Michael Buffong illuminating it anew for Talawa Theatre in 2013 – so any new production has big boots to fill.
NEWS: Full stellar cast announced for Trevor Nunn’s Wars of the Roses
Rose Theatre Kingston today announces the full company for The Wars of the Roses, which runs 16 September to 31 October 2015.
My theatre diary: Plays to make you think – Widowers’ Houses, Visitors, Hope and Sirens
If your brain has started to turn to mush after too much turkey and mash, get yourself along to one of these four plays quick. I can personally recommend each for provoking serious thought, discussion and reflection on urgent issues including local government, austerity, dementia, discrimination, feminism, urban housing and corruption, to name a few. […]