The Tragedy of King Richard The Second is not stately, sacred, shockingly regicidal Shakespeareana. This is a brawl, a nasty coup against a hopeless king, a howl of rage at what fools, in power politics, these mortals be.
Nine Night is an honest and beautiful play which by being so particular and rooted in one community becomes a conduit of universal emotional truths. Fabulous.
Can we, I wonder, ever learn to deplore past attitudes without being vengeful about it? The Cane is a mischievously satirical – and unsettling – imagination by Mark Ravenhill.
Has the performance of A Christmas Carol, and Simon Callow, changed over the years? Probably, but not from ego or bravura, no cheap tricks, no knowing modernities: if anything the sincerity has deepened.
As a gross-out gigglefest sweeps London theatre, The Tell-Tale Heart – Anthony Neilson’s knowingly gothic take on Edgar Allen Poe’s famous first-person narrative – arrives at the NT’s Dorfman Theatre.
David Edgar’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol, directed as last year by Rachel Kavanaugh, gives the old story of ghosts and redemption deft additions and expanded scenes
A few hours after Theresa May postponed the parliamentary vote and spun us down into another layer of Brexi-hell, the little OFS – a theatre shared with Crisis homeless centre – gave us this premiere by Mike Bartlett.
The great thing about the proud tradition of Oxford Playhouse panto is that while cannily aware of the audience’s likely cultural uplift, it has no fear of getting down and dirty with the rackety, popular and downright silly, and a firm grip on local in-jokes.
Joanna Carrick’s adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, a spirited three-hander, is astonishingly faithful to Lewis Carroll’s text and, importantly, spirit.
This Uncle Vanya at Hampstead Theatre one has to revolve around Vanya, and Alan Cox is suitably winning in Vanya’s dismayed, demoralised self-aware failure to count in life, and his hopeless mooning admiration of the lovely Yelena, who has married his awful old brother-in-law the Professor.
