Presented by an OffWestEnd OnComm awarded team, David Harrold’s play Villain In Tinseltown – ‘a satirical monologue and life warning from the legendary, Oscar-winning actor George Sanders – is the production reopening London’s White Bear Theatre from 18- 29 May 2021.
FEATURED SHOW: Reviews are in for Michel de Montaigne & The First Modern Man
Critics have been enjoying spending the evening in the company of French Renaissance thinker Michel de Montaigne care of Michael Barry’s new play The First Modern Man. We’ve rounded up our favourite review highlights. Get in quick to see the show before its limited run finishes this Saturday!
‘All entertaining in a quirky & engaging way’: THE FIRST MODERN MAN – Hen & Chickens Theatre
The First Modern Man has that elusive and winning blend, it is a play that manages to be both enjoyable and informative. Recommended.
‘Like meeting someone really cool at a party’: THE FIRST MODERN MAN – Hen & Chickens Theatre
The First Modern Man is an hour of solidly good writing, performed with honesty and commitment, and really well staged.
’A philosophy which helps us to understand modern times’: THE FIRST MODERN MAN – Hen & Chickens Theatre
Michael Barry’s celebration of a great interrogative intellect, The First Modern Man, can only work if the central performance manages to convey the imagined charm of a florid and thoughtful writer, with enough biographical detail and introspection to round out the thinker. It succeeds.
‘Jonathan Hansler brings Michel de Montaigne to life’: THE FIRST MODERN MAN – Hen & Chickens Theatre
It’s no easy feat performing a one-man show. But jam-packed into one hour, The First Modern Man tells the tale of French Renaissance philosopher and essayist Michel de Montaigne. Set in de Montaigne’s library, this is a ‘break the fourth wall,’ kind of play.
‘I suspect he would’ve been a Remainer’: The First Modern Man’s Michael Barry on Michel de Montaigne, blogging & Brexit
Michel de Montaigne is credited with inventing the essay writing form. What would he have made of the proliferation of today’s equivalent blogging and vlogging? How might he have voted in the EU Referendum? In the final instalment of our three-part series, The First Modern Man imagines the sixteenth-century thinker tackling these 21st-century phenomena. Plus, did you see him on London Live? Watch here – and then get booking!
‘All that focus on the individual started with him’: Michael Barry on how Michel de Montaigne inspired him to write The First Modern Man
Have you ‘met’ the sixteenth-century French philosopher and essayist Michel de Montaigne yet? Reading Sarah Bakewell’s book How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer set Michael Barry off on a journey of discovery that led to his new play The First Modern Man. Learn more in the second of our three-part series with him – and then get booking!
Ibsen, Osborne, Pinter & Martin Crimp: The First Modern Man’s Michael Barry pays tribute to his influences
We hope Mate Aleks Sierz adds some of these top quotes to his Text of the Day series! Sixteenth-century thinker Michel de Montaigne certainly had a way with words. How many of these pithy aphorisms feature in The First Modern Man, a new play inspired by him? Time to get booking!
The First Modern Man: 17 quotable quotes by Michel de Montaigne, now coming to the stage
We hope Mate Aleks Sierz adds some of these top quotes to his Text of the Day series! Sixteenth-century thinker Michel de Montaigne certainly had a way with words. How many of these pithy aphorisms feature in The First Modern Man, a new play inspired by him? Time to get booking!
NEWS: Who was The First Modern Man? New British play celebrates a leading thinker of European Renaissance
What do our contemporary British culture and philosophy owe to Europe? As the unravelling Brexit chaos begins to bite, a new British play celebrates the great sixteenth-century European who was the model for our contemporary lives.