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THE RESISTABLE RISE OF ARTURO UI – Donmar Warehouse

In London theatre, Opinion, Plays, Reviews by Ian FosterLeave a Comment

There’s something special in the timelessness of some pieces of theatre, their themes and arguments as relevant to audiences today as they were when they were written years, decades, even centuries ago. Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui falls into the middle category, written in 1941 as an allegorical response to his nation’s fall to Nazism, and was magisterially revived at Chichester a few years back.

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LIFE OF GALILEO – Young Vic Theatre

In London theatre, Opinion, Plays, Reviews by Libby PurvesLeave a Comment

The year 1632: we are halfway through the epic conflict between Galileo Galilei and the Holy Roman Church, an authority in its day quite as ruthless as Stalin and as doctrinaire as Mao. Our hero has wisely gone quiet for eight years after the initial exuberant stirrings of his realisation, deduced from the moons of Jupiter, that the earth does not actually lie “serene and motionless” at the heart of a universe of crystal spheres with immobile stars.