I have to admit, the main motivation I had for trying to see this play from Sam Holcroft when it ran at the National’s Dorfman Theatre back in 2015 was some of the casting (Stephen Mangan and Miles Jupp are two brilliant comic actors), as well as hearing that they would have a full-on Christmas dinner onstage.
‘Strip out the comic vignettes & the play feels flimsy’: STORIES – National Theatre ★★★
Nina Raine’s new play Stories is back to familiar territory: A woman desperately wants a kid. Unlike Yerma (Billie Piper was cracking in the Young Vic production two years ago) it’s not a physical problem, more of a partner problem.
‘Entertaining & impeccably acted’: STORIES – National Theatre
Ultimately, Stories might not necessarily be too profound or truly enlightening, but it does speak to the ways in which a plan for life can lead you most astray and I did find it entertaining and impeccably acted.
‘What a lovely issue-based play’: STORIES – National Theatre
At the National Theatre, Stories – Nina Raine’s follow-up to her very big hit Consent – is emotionally intelligent and often funny but rarely deep.
‘Strip out the comic vignettes & the play is left feeling flimsy’: STORIES – National Theatre
Nina Raine’s new play Stories is back to familiar territory: A woman desperately wants a kid. Unlike Yerma, it’s not a physical problem, more of a partner problem.
‘Undemanding & not bad fun’: STORIES – National Theatre ★★★
It’s a sign of the sparky credibility of Nina Raine’s play about a woman desperate for a sperm donor – having broken with her younger, unwilling boyfriend – that half an hour in I started thinking “aren’t women hell!” But later that changes to “actually, it’s theatricals and intellectual creatives who are hell”. It is all very NW3.
NEWS: Director Peter Brook returns in National Theatre season which also features new plays from Nina Raine & Anthony Neilson
Details have been announced for the National Theatre’s season running from July 2018 to January 2019. Highlights include Peter Brook returning to direct at the NT for the first time in 50 years with The Prisoner, plus new plays from Nina Raine and Anthony Neilson.
NEWS: Clare Foster, Lee Ingleby and Thusitha Jayasundera join the West End cast of Consent
Clare Foster, Lee Ingleby and Thusitha Jayasundera have joined Claudie Blakley, Stephen Campbell Moore, Heather Craney and Adam James in Nina Raine’s Consent at the Harold Pinter Theatre from18 May 2018.
NEWS: Consent transfers to the West End from the National Theatre
The National Theatre production of Nina Raine’s Consent will transfer to the West End, following the 2017 critically acclaimed sell-out run at the Dorfman Theatre.
ONCE IN A LIFETIME – Young Vic Theatre
The end of the silent movie era and the arrival of the talkies has proved fertile ground for many a storyteller, not least Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s immortal Singin’ in the Rain, but Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s Once In A Lifetime has a serious claim to being one of the first.
NEWS: Harry Enfield stars in Once in a Lifetime at Young Vic, New shows
Award-winning comedian, actor, writer and director Harry Enfield will play Hollywood studio boss Glogauer in Richard Jones’ production of Once in a Lifetime from 25 November 2016 in the Young Vic’s Main House. Joining Enfield in the company are Daniel Abelson, Claudie Blakley, Okorie Chukwu, Lucy Cohu, Lizzy Connolly, Buffy Davis, Otto Farrant, Amy Griffiths, Amanda Lawrence and John Marquez. Further casting is still to …
NEWS: Full cast announced for The Painkiller, starring Kenneth Branagh & Rob Brydon
It is announced that Claudie Blakley, Marcus Fraser, Mark Hadfield and Alex Macqueen will join previously confirmed cast members Kenneth Branagh and Rob Brydon in the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company’s new comedy The Painkiller. The fifth production in the Plays at the Garrick season will play from 5 March until 30 April with press night on 17 March.