With the total loss of its Arts Council funding, Hampstead Theatre’s future as a specialist new writing venue is in doubt. But before anything drastically changes, the playwrights and plays developed by Roxana Silbert, who was edged out as artistic director in December last year, are still coming through. One of them is Ruby Thomas, whose Either, her 2019 drama in the studio here, was thrillingly experimental. Boy, can she write! Her latest, this time on the main stage, is Linck & Mülhahn, a historical queer love story which features a gender-pioneering couple.
‘Both bubbles of laughter & heartbreaking tragedy’: LINCK & MULHAHN – Hampstead Theatre ★★★★★
Helena Wilson and Maggie Bain in Linck & Mülhahn, Hampstead Theatre, Feb 2023. Photo: Helen Murray
Writer Ruby Thomas was in the British Library when she came across a reference Linck and Mulhahn, a same-sex couple in 18th Century Prussia wh…
‘Sharp, credible & funny’: LINCK & MULHAHN – Hampstead Theatre
The story of Linck and Mulhahn in 1722 is the backbone of a fascinating story which inspires a playful tragicomedy from Ruby Thomas at the Hampstead Theatre, who has already dazzled us twice downstairs in this theatre which discovers new writers and tends them well.
‘The music is magical & the visuals impressive’: DREAM – Royal Shakespeare Company (Online review)
Dream, using motion capture of actors, animation, music and some audience interaction, is not an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but is inspired by the forest presented within it. It was originally planned as live experience by the Royal Shakespeare Company, but has now moved to online.
MAN TO MAN – Touring ★★★★
Imaginative staging and superb acting give Man To Man at the Traverse a fascination that cannot prevent it from running out of steam slightly before the end.