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‘Didn’t I want to see it unfiltered by the opinions of others?’: Mark Shenton explores critical opinion and its influence on perception

In Broadway, Features, London theatre, Musicals, Online shows, Opinion, Other Recent Articles, Plays by Mark ShentonLeave a Comment

One of the pleasures — but also the risks — of being a theatre critic is that you come first to a new production, ready to form your own opinions on what you’ve seen, before you’ve already encountered or digested the opinions of others.

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Can honest critics have theatre professionals as friends?

In Broadway, Features, London theatre, Musicals, Online shows, Opinion, Plays by Mark ShentonLeave a Comment

I’m unashamedly a friend and champion of the theatre; but I can never been a simple cheerleader for it, regardless of the circumstances or my connections with people in a show I’m seeing. As honest critics find out all too often, we’re loved when we love something we see; but that can quickly pivot to becoming the enemy when we don’t.

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Mark Shenton’s weekly chart of forthcoming theatrical comings & goings has some new entries

In Edinburgh Festival, Features, London theatre, Musicals, Online shows, Opinion, Plays, Regional theatre, Scotland, Touring by Mark ShentonLeave a Comment

This weekly column keeps track of the shows that are coming back, or are newly being announced, as theatres prepare to re-open from next month onwards. It will be updated weekly until such time as it becomes a reality, and from then on will provide a weekly update to that week’s openings and future ones.

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Returning & new productions heading for the West End & beyond post-lockdown: Are you up to date?

In Broadway, Features, London theatre, Musicals, Online shows, Opinion, Plays by Mark ShentonLeave a Comment

Meanwhile, I want to start keeping track of the shows that are coming back, or are newly being announced, in a new feature here that will be updated weekly until such time as it becomes a reality, and from then on will provide a weekly update to that week’s openings and future ones.

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What next for the theatre industry post-pandemic & how will it have to change?

In Broadway, Features, London theatre, Musicals, Online shows, Opinion, Plays by Mark ShentonLeave a Comment

In a feature for The Stage earlier in the week, Jessica Korvavos, president of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group, was asked to sum up the last year: “A year when singing and dancing in public have been against the law? It’s been like a horrible dystopian cross between Footloose and Groundhog Day.”

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COMMON – National Theatre

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

Over the past few years where he may or may not have been studying sculpture at Saint Martin’s College, Northampton-born playwright DC Moore has been putting together a résumé of quietly impressive work – exploring aspects of contemporary masculinity in insightful plays such as the excellent Straight and under-rated monologue Honest, or opening up his focus to the war in Afghanistan in The Empire and family dramas in The Swan.