Romantics Anonymous is a story predicated on equality, mutual support and finding your own path as individuals (and as a couple) rather than waiting for someone else to come and save you from your life – implications that after years of rom coms and social messaging is subtly but usefully employed through a charmingly conceived but nonetheless carefully structured story.
‘Hytner has envisaged both stories with considerable care’: THE SHRINE / BED AMONG THE LENTILS – Bridge Theatre
The Bridge Theatre’s most savvy decision is in teaming The Shrine with Bed Among the Lentils, placing together two of our finest actors who effortless and regularly transition between stage and screen – Monica Dolan and Lesley Manville.
‘A play we are sure to see again & again’: THREE KINGS – Old Vic (Online review)
Good things come to those who wait, an axiom that applies in duplicate to Stephen Beresford’s latest play Three Kings screened via the Old Vic’s innovative In Camera series for just five performances.
‘Hare allows much more of his own personality to emerge’: BEAT THE DEVIL – Bridge Theatre
The first short play is Beat the Devil in which David Hare stakes first claim to what will surely be a new genre or at least a familiar theme in the coming months – the Covid monologue.
’An exhilarating return to live performance’: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR: THE CONCERT – Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre
Jesus Christ Superstar at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre may say concert on the poster but there is singing, dancing, performing and storytelling nine shows a week.
’As vivid as anything you saw on stage 5 months ago’: BLINDNESS – Donmar Warehouse
Ben and Max Ringham’s work for Blindness is a masterpiece, a 70-minute performance that layers story, sound effects, music and lighting design to immerse the audience in a pandemic experience.
‘Adds some dynamism’: THE SECRET LOVE LIFE OF OPHELIA – Greenwich Theatre (Online review)
The Greenwich Theatre production of The Secret Love Life of Ophelia showcases a selection of excellent young performers that inadvertently asks some big questions about how we cast Hamlet in the 21st century.
National Theatre at Home: Saving our lockdown & pointing the way for future engagement
The National Theatre really did save lockdown and made us appreciate our phenomenal creative industries, but they may also have inadvertently pointed the way for the future as surely as National Theatre Live did in 2009.
‘Death haunts this play as surely as it does Hamlet’: How significant is the role of Hester in The Deep Blue Sea?
Like Shakespeare’s greatest play, The Deep Blue Sea is grief channelled into art, aligning Hamlet and Hester as two souls enveloped by death and choosing whether to live.
How important is theatre photography to the success of a show?
Theatre photography is one of the most important ways to promote a new production and simultaneously one of the elements audiences – and probably most creatives – actively think least about.
‘You’ll be glad to share a bit of lockdown with Michael Sheen & David Tennant’: STAGED – BBC iPlayer (Online review)
As Simon Evans’ cheeky new comedy points out, when the Government finally gives the go-ahead, the best-prepared teams will have their pick of the playhouses and first dibs on an audience desperate to get back to live theatre.
The cinefication of theatre predates lockdown: What are the implications?
For better or worse, the association between theatre, television and film has only grown closer in the last ten years, not just with artists moving between the different genres but also in the adoption of cinematic technique within productions.
Parliamentary power plays: Considering This House & other recent political dramas (not just by James Graham!)
When it was first performed in 2012 James Graham’s This House was an affectionate satire, using its 1970s setting to examine the still young Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government formed in 2010.
Streetcars, Smoke & Southern Belles: Taking on Tennessee Williams
As a great American dramatist, Williams’s timeless understanding of human emotion and the particularly explosive dynamics of family groups has always been such a notable feature of his writing.
Frankenstein vs Frankenstein: Was role swapping any more than a gimmick?
This is the theatre at its very best and on screen, both productions are gripping, using the camera work to richly convey the abstract shapes and grand vision of its boldly beautiful staging, while allowing the connection between the lead actors to shine.
‘The very best versions of the story exist in a complex psychological abyss’: A psychological study of Macbeth across genres
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most frequently performed plays, and it is a story filled with death, danger and prophesy.
‘A superb choice to lift a nation’s spirits’: ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS – National Theatre (Online review)
The first show in the National Theatre at Home programme was the 2011 smash-hit One Man, Two Guvnors, one of the great success stories of the Nicholas Hytner era, a cheeky farce written by Richard Bean and starring National Theatre favourites James Corden and Oliver Chris.
An exceptionally insightful period of shows means Chekhov’s secrets are finally emerging
Three Sisters at the National Theatre, Uncle Vanya at the Harold Pinter and The Seagull at the Playhouse Theatre have all taken very different approaches to reworking Chekhov, bringing fresh insight and relevance to a writer whose plays have often felt rather dry.
‘Parkinson has such an ability to tread the line between comedy & emotion’: SHOE LADY – Royal Court Theatre
Shoe Lady is an intriguing and well-considered examination of the social and domestic pressures placed on women to perform multiple and often contradictory roles in our society.
‘This production is the real deal’: THE LAST FIVE YEARS – Southwark Playhouse
It may be almost 20 years old, but Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years feels timeless and recognisable and this bold restaging at Southwark Playhouse is a triumph.