Initial casting for the National Theatre’s production of Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls includes Liv Hill (Angie), Katherine Kingsley (Marlene), Wendy Kweh (Lady Nijo), Amanda Lawrence (Pope Joan), Ashley McGuire (Dull Gret), Ashna Rabbheru (Kit) and Siobhan Redmond (Isabella Bird).
NEWS: National Theatre’s new season features Andrea Levy’s Small Island, Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls & Lenny Henry as Richard Pryor
Rufus Norris has unveiled the National Theatre’s plans for 2019 and beyond. Highlights include the world premiere of Small Island adapted by Helen Edmundson from Andrea Levy’s novel, directed by Rufus Norris.
‘Oddly unemotional, disjointed & not entirely satisfying’: ARISTOCRATS – Donmar Warehouse
Director Lyndsey Turner is clearly impatient with the tradition of playing this melancholy drama as a tribute to Chekhov, and her production is thoroughly anti-naturalistic.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Aristocrats at the Donmar Warehouse
Lyndsey Turner directs this new production of Brian Friel’s play Aristocrats about a generation whose past threatens their future. Here, Love London Love Culture rounds up the reviews….
‘Interesting without being outright memorable’: ARISTOCRATS – Donmar Warehouse ★★★
Aristocrats does show once again Brian Friel’s remarkable ability to understand and cross religious and personal boundaries, but this time it fails to grapple the heart with quite the keenness of some of his other work.
‘In a summer of great Irish drama, this feels unsatisfactory by comparison’: ARISTOCRATS – Donmar Warehouse
There’s little for the cast to improve because the faults in Aristocrats lie with Friel. This production draws-out all of the core themes but cannot overcome the play’s reliance on heavy exposition and failure to satisfactorily resolve its own questions about the past of these characters.
‘Calling Friel the Irish Chekhov is trite now, but it is all there’: ARISTOCRATS – Donmar Warehouse ★★★★
Brian Friel’s gift is humane ambiguity, refusing to allow tidy judgements on his characters. Or even – though his theme is Ireland’s history – on the social structures they inhabit.
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.
NEWS: Further casting for Pinter at the Pinter includes Keith Allen, Rupert Graves, Gary Kemp, John Simm & Maggie Steed
Keith Allen, Phil Davis, Paapa Essiedu, Rupert Graves, Gary Kemp, John Simm and Maggie Steed have joined the extraordinary company of Pinter at the Pinter, the unprecedented season featuring all 20 of Harold Pinter’s one-act plays, running from September 2018 to February 2019, to mark the tenth anniversary of the Nobel Prize winner’s death.
NEWS: Paul Higgins & James Laurenson join the cast of Brian Friel’s Aristocrats at the Donmar Warehouse
Paul Higgins and James Laurenson will join the previously announced Elaine Cassidy, David Dawson, David Ganly, Emmet Kirwan, Aisling Loftus, Ciaran McIntyre and Eileen Walsh in the cast for Brian Friel’s play Aristocrats, at the Donmar Warehouse from 2 August to 22 September 2018 (press night is 9 August).
NEWS: Lenny Henry stars in August Wilson play as part of Nadia Fall’s inaugural season at Theatre Royal Stratford East
Lenny Henry is to take on the role of smooth-talking hustler Elmore in August Wilson’s King Hedley II (17 May to 16 June 2019) as part of Nadia Fall’s inaugural season as artistic director of Theatre Royal Stratford East. This marks the first time Wilson’s work will be staged at the venue.
NEWS: Martin Freeman & Jane Horrocks among stars lined up for West End season of Harold Pinter short plays
Pinter at the Pinter, a unique event presented by the Jamie Lloyd Company, featuring all 20 one-act plays written by the great British playwright, will be performed in the theatre that bears his name from 6 September 2018 to 23 February 2019.
NEWS: Hayley Atwell & Jack Lowden swap power roles in Donmar’s Measure for Measure
Artistic director Josie Rourke has announced two new Donmar Warehouse productions for 2018: Brian Friel’s the Aristocrats, directed by Lyndsey Turner, and her own gender-swapping production of Measure for Measure, starring Hayley Atwell and Jack Lowden.
‘Kelly plays a blinder’: GIRLS & BOYS – Royal Court Theatre ★★★★
One helluva writer, that Kelly and his ‘muse’, Carey Mulligan. Will Girls & Boys transfer? It would be a sell-out, if arduous to maintain, I imagine for Mulligan. Time will tell…
‘Structurally simple but linguistically rich’: GIRLS & BOYS – Royal Court Theatre
Girls & Boys at the Royal Court Theatre is a necessary contribution to mainstream subsidised theatre and unquestionably deserving of a place in contemporary feminist theatre’s canon.
‘Absolutely superb’: GIRLS & BOYS – Royal Court Theatre
The fact that we still have men today who think male violence is “a complex issue” shows that Dennis Kelly’s play Girls & Boys – with men firmly in its sights – remains desperately needed.
‘Carey Mulligan’s tragic intensity is peerless’: GIRLS & BOYS – Royal Court Theatre
Es Devlin’s design for Girls and Boys, aided by Luke Halls’ video work, is simply stunning – the simplest of ideas realised with perfect execution.
‘The most moving play I’ve seen for years’: GIRLS & BOYS – Royal Court Theatre ★★★★★
With its almost unbearable ending, Dennis Kelly’s play is a wonderful mix of hilarity and horror. Carey Mulligan is simply brilliant, totally at home on stage in Lyndsey Turner’s well-paced, absorbing and finally utterly compelling production.
NEWS: Carey Mulligan returns to Royal Court in premiere of Dennis Kelly’s one-woman Girls & Boys
Carey Mulligan has been cast in the world premiere of Girls & Boys, written by Dennis Kelly and directed by Lyndsey Turner. Girls & Boys will run in the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, 8 February 2018 to 10 March 2018.
SAINT GEORGE & THE DRAGON – National Theatre
After DC Moore’s flawed Common comes Mullarkey’s similarly flawed Saint George and the Dragon. Taking the myth of George, the legendary dragon slayer and rescuer of damsels in distress, the playwright wraps the folktale in the flag of our nation’s story.