MARIA MARTEN STRIDES AGAIN: A WOMAN’S STORY Founding this touring company 36 years ago, Ivan Cutting swore a great oath that one local story they wouldn’t do was Maria Marten, murdered in the Red Barn by … Continue reading →
It is a joy to have Greg Doran’s RSC hosting a musical about Joan Littlewood: itself a debut by the composer Sam Kenyon creating book, music and lyrics, and with a cast full of RSC first-timers including Clare Burt as Joan herself.
The sun has got his hat on, England’s in the semi-final under a chap with a proper waistcoat, and Noel Gay’s 1937 musical is a great big, lovely, silly, dancing elephant of an all-British vintage musical.
This Idomeneo works because it is seriously well acted within a clear directorial vision: Lowe, Bottone, Pierard and Nilon deliver intense, deeply felt characters driven to actions we can comprehend by emotions we can feel.
Verdi’s little-known opera about Peruvian Incas and Spanish conquistadors, Alzira has finally received its UK premiere at Buxton International Festival.
At the end of its epic London run with the peerless Mark Rylance creating the part, I went back to decide whether – without him at its core – Jez Butterworth’s play Jerusalem would really last.
CRITIC AND HELLRAISER LUKE JONES WINCES AND LAUGHS … This is as violent as anything I’ve seen on the stage. And I’m including in this survey that Titus Andronicus at the Globe which saw half a GCSE class collapse … Continue reading →
So many characters – and their troublesome characteristics – have piled in, manic sitcom style, with bursts of backstory and downright bafflement, that it seems a problem beyond solution in a final hour. That is why you should not leave in the interval.
MICHAEL ADAIR SHUDDERS AT THE HARD OLD PATRIARCHY… ‘These modern neurotic women, doctor. What are we going to do with them?’ says one exasperated male character to another. Here, right on time for the #MeToo generation, is a revival of … Continue reading →
