Patriots at the Almeida Theatre is a fresh history play: confrontational, shocking, classic in its focus on vast flawed characters and pretty close to documented – and very recent – reality. It has all the elements: a kingmaker whose creation turns on him, acolytes and shifting alliances, self-serving arrogance, passionate romantic patriotism, politics and big money and tragedy and defeat.
‘Patsy Ferran & Luke Thallon perform with superb control’: CAMP SIEGFRIED – Old Vic Theatre
Bess Wohl’s history play is an imaginatively-written, brilliantly chilling and resonant account of life at a Nazi summer camp, starring Patsy Ferran and Luke Thallon.
‘Disconcerting, essential stuff’: CAMP SIEGFRIED – Old Vic Theatre ★★★★
Highly recommended, but I wouldn’t bank on getting a good nights sleep afterwards. Evil in plain sight is a real chiller, and that’s exactly what Wohl is serving up here. Disconcerting, essential stuff.
‘Bringing Ferran & Thallon together for the first time is a masterstroke’: CAMP SIEGFRIED – Old Vic Theatre
Brought to life by two theatre actors on their way to a big career and finally united at the Old Vic, Ferran and Thallon are great now and are only going to get better – make sure you’re there to see it.
NEWS: The Old Vic announces Back Together season
The Old Vic has announced its Back Together season, the seventh from artistic director Matthew Warchus, which will run from July 2021 to July 2022 and combines both streamed and live shows.
‘Has feeling as well as intellect’: LEOPOLDSTADT – West End
Tom Stoppard’s personal story in Leopoldstadt sees the writer return to form as a commentator of cultural, social and historical patterns.
NEWS: Casting is announced for the world premiere of Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt
Initial casting has been announced for the world premiere of Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, directed by Patrick Marber, along with a four-week extension to the run.
‘Superb production of Coward’s self-revealing comedy’: PRESENT LAUGHTER – The Old Vic ★★★★
First of all let’s say that Andrew Scott is a marvel in Present Laughter, a 21st century Ur-Coward hero, who manages to do it without either the matey crassness lately inflicted on the part by Rufus Hound, or that retro, clipped Cowardspeak which echoes the Master too much.
‘Simply a wonderful night at the theatre’: PRESENT LAUGHTER – The Old Vic
The Old Vic’s production of Present Laughter finally feels as though we’re shaking off some of the restraints that have shackled Noel Coward to the past.
NEWS: Andrew Scott will star in Matthew Warchus’ production of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter at The Old Vic
The Old Vic today has announced that Matthew Warchus will direct Andrew Scott in Noёl Coward’s provocative comedy Present Laughter, opening on 25 June 2019, with previews from 17 June. The cast also includes Luke Thallon, Sophie Thompson, Suzie Toase and Indira Varma.
‘The highlight of Pinter At The Pinter so far’: PINTER FIVE – West End
Pinter Five sees Patrick Marber, someone who could call Harold Pinter a friend and colleague, take the directorial wheel as he presents a triple-bill of The Room, Victoria Station and Family Voices, delving further into the wealth of short plays left behind by the playwright.
‘The theatre gift that keeps on giving’: PINTER FIVE – West End
The collective works that make-up Pinter 5 feel as insightful and meaningful as any of the Pinter at the Pinter anthologies that have come before.
‘Entertaining enough’: COCK – Chichester Festival Theatre
Cock is by no means classic Mike Bartlett but it is still great fun and, for connoisseurs of supreme social awkwardness in particular, a decently entertaining hour and a half.
‘Visceral, electrifying & still provocative’: COCK – Chichester Festival Theatre ★★★★★
I was enthralled by this fiery revival of Cock which may have lost its initial shock value in the intervening, increasingly liberated, years, but is still capable of being moving, comical and daring thanks to Bartlett’s blistering dialogue.
NEWS: Antony Sher, Penelope Wilton, Russell Tovey & others join all-star Pinter at Pinter
Further all-star casting has been announced for Jamie Lloyd Company’s Pinter at the Pinter, an unparalleled event featuring all twenty short plays written by Harold Pinter in the West End theatre that bears his name.
‘A brave and epic piece of new writing’: THE INHERITANCE – Young Vic
The Inheritance is a brave and epic piece of new writing from Matthew Lopez, taking a scalpel to contemporary gay life in New York, asking what does it mean to be a gay man today and just how much of that is owed to an inherited (and neglected) cultural legacy.
‘Thought-provoking, playful & fun’: MISALLIANCE – Orange Tree Theatre
George Bernard Shaw was a theatrical superman. A critical attack dog as well as a creator of problem plays both pleasant and unpleasant, he invented the drama of ideas.
NEWS: The Ferryman, Follies & Ink dominate 2017 Standard Awards shortlists
Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman, James Graham’s Ink and the National’s revival of Sondheim’s Follies dominate the shortlists for the 2017 Evening Standard Theatre Awards.
ALBION – Almeida Theatre
Albion begins with Audrey, played with indefatigable energy by Victoria Hamilton, in the garden of her deceased uncle’s family home, deep in the English countryside. She has bought the property, which boasts a historic 1920s garden, now much overgrown, which a First World War veteran once formed into a pastoral paradise fit for heroes.