This isn’t a ‘best of’ list it’s my best-of list, these are the plays that shaped me this decade and will stay with me well into the next.
20 shows to look forward to in 2020
Looking ahead to some of 2020’s exciting shows, most with an emphasis away from the West End and instead focusing at the London Fringe and across the UK.
10 of Ought To Be Clowns’ top moments of the decade
Ever behind the curve, I present 10 of my top moments in a theatre over the last ten years (plus a few bonus extra ones because whittling down this list was hard, and it will probably be different tomorrow anyway!).
‘There’s a lot of exciting, ferocious, young theatre-makers out there’: 10 questions for 10 years – Rosie Wyatt
She’s been acting less time than I’ve been blogging but I can’t hold that against Rosie Wyatt, an actress whose name you should know.
10 questions for 10 years – Hans Kesting
Internationaal Theater Amsterdam’s Hans Kesting was my first ever Best Actor award winner and has continued to be one of the most interesting actors around, in any language.
‘Trademark van Hove is a good & bad thing’: ALL ABOUT EVE – West End ★★★★
Ivo van Hove’s production and stage adaptation of the film All About Eve is trademark van Hove and that is a good and bad thing.
‘There are moments of greatness in amongst the gimmicks’: ALL ABOUT EVE – West End ★★★
Love London Love Culture’s Kirsty Herrington paid a visit to the Noel Coward Theatre to see Ivo van Hove’s production of All About Eve, based on the Oscar-winning film.
‘Fascinating it still is, engaging perhaps not always’: ALL ABOUT EVE – West End ★★★
Fascinating All About Eve is, engaging perhaps not always. But anyone hoping for the same level of emotional payoff that Anderson’s other stage roles have demonstrated will likely end up frustrated with Eve.
‘The kind of emotional intensity that remains rare’: ALL ABOUT EVE – West End
Ivo van Hove’s take on All About Eve ticks all my boxes at the Noël Coward Theatre, great work from Gillian Anderson, Lily James and a stellar Monica Dolan.
‘Something quite different’: ALL ABOUT EVE – West End
This All About Eve is something quite different, same story deliberately new frame with staging that pushes at the boundaries of theatre and film.
NEWS: Final cast is announced for limited West End run of All About Eve
Full casting has been announced for the world premiere of Ivo van Hove’s stage production of the 1950 Twentieth Century Fox film All About Eve as West End rehearsals commence.
NEWS: Stanley Townsend & Ian Drysdale join All About Eve line-up as further casting announced
Further casting has been announced for the world premiere of Ivo van Hove’s stage production of the 1950 Twentieth Century Fox film All About Eve.
Mark Shenton views the latest week of news, openings, non-openings & ‘absolutely remarkable” awards
News, reviews, interviews, commentary and farewells from London, New York and beyond, including The Stage Debut Awards, Sylvia at the Old Vic and regional openings in Chichester and Bristol.
NEWS: Gillian Anderson & Lily James will star in Ivo van Hove’s All About Eve at the Noël Coward Theatre
Gillian Anderson and Lily James will star in a strictly limited run of Joseph L Mankiewicz’s All About Eve at the Noël Coward Theatre, adapted from the 1950 classic movie and directed for the stage by Olivier and Tony Award winner Ivo van Hove, playing from 2 February to 11 May 2019 (press night is 12 February).
NEWS: David Lan announced as Special Award winner at the Olivier Awards for his work at the Young Vic
Former artistic director of the Young Vic, director and playwright David Lan will be presented with the Special Award at the Olivier Awards 2018 ceremony on Sunday 8 April at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
‘Deeply morose’: HEDDA GABLER – Touring
Look, I appreciate it’s never rainbows and sunshine in Hedda Gabler but, even by Ibsen’s standards, this National Theatre production is intense and deeply morose.
There Ought To Be Clowns’ 11 top theatre moments of 2017
As ever, the wait for the end-of-year lists of favourite plays and performances has to continue until I’ve actually stopped seeing theatre in 2017. But in the meantime, here’s a list of 11 of my top moments in a theatre in 2017.
#ntNetwork – National Theatre ★★★★
Whoever decided to revive Chayefsky’s film via a stage production made an astute choice. Network could hardly be more topical or timely in an era that has become infamous for false truths, ‘fake news’ and where ideas have become truncated and traduced by social media.
NETWORK – National Theatre ★★★
Bryan Cranston certainly earns every award going for his craggy, convincing Beale, moving from Dimblebyesque authority to a crazed Learlike breakdown, a self-indulgent, unwell despair.
NETWORK at the National Theatre: ‘Ivo van Hove reasserts his place as one of the premier theatremakers working, anywhere’
A satire that managed to predict just how powerful a tool populist anger can be when leveraged effectively, it is transformed into the immersive bustle of a TV studio, that of UBS Evening News where old hack Howard Beale – a transcendent performance by Bryan Cranston – has been handed his notice.