Random and topical thoughts and quotes gathered by My Theatre Mates contributor Aleks Sierz, first published on www.sierz.co.uk.
‘An absolute belter of a thriller’: ANNA – National Theatre
ANNA is such a great little show. It’s a curiosity, certainly, and it is worth seeing for the technical bravado alone. But it’s also an absolute belter of a thriller too, something which I don’t think it’s getting enough credit for.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Anna at the National Theatre
Phoebe Fox stars as the title role in the new thriller Anna, now playing at the National Theatre. Love London Love Culture rounds up the reviews…
Best of the Blogs: The Lehman Trilogy, Anna, Vincent River, Our Town & more
As part of a new series, our editor Lisa Martland picks out seven of her Top Picks from the last week of theatre (20-27 May 2019). Amidst her choices is the return of The Lehman Trilogy, impressing Jonathan Baz with its ‘sheer technical theatrical genius”, while Aleks Sierz asks whether wearing headphones during a performance of Anna at the National Theatre is all a gimmick or vital to the impact of the play.
‘The thriller aspects are definitely effective, if not the sense of history’: ANNA – National Theatre
Intriguing Cold War thriller Anna is thoroughly immersive, but lacks a convincing sense of historical reality.
‘Interesting & strangely intimate experience’: ANNA – National Theatre ★★★★
Anna at the National Theatre is a taut thriller and an interesting and different play watching experience.
‘A sort of McBurney-meets-le Carré mini-thriller’: ANNA – National Theatre ★★★★
After the querulous, inward-looking tedium of her feminist polemic The Writer, Ella Hickson returns to interesting form with this curiosity, Anna.
NEWS: National Theatre announces new season including cast of 40 for stage adaptation of Andrea Levy’s Small Island
Gershwyn Eustache Jnr, Leah Harvey and Aisling Loftus lead the cast of Small Island, adapted by Helen Edmundson from Andrea Levy’s prize-winning novel, directed by Rufus Norris in the Olivier Theatre, as part of the National Theatre’s new season.