The RSC, Young Vic and Theatre for a New Audience have a difficult but fascinating task ahead in re-creating lost work Swingin’ the Dream that honours the original while offering something new to modern audiences.
‘Atmospheric & absorbing short drama’: THAT DINNER OF ’67 – BBC Radio 4
With director Stanley Kramer’s making of the groundbreaking film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner as its subject matter, Tracy-Ann Oberman and David Spicer’s new radio drama has a compelling contemporary relevance.
‘Makes a virtue of its scratch staging’: SUNSET BOULVARD IN CONCERT – Leicester Curve (Online review)
Curve Leicester’s Sunset Boulevard certainly offers ‘new ways to dream,’ proving a beautiful and fitting finale to a year of considerable change for theatre.
‘Will put a warm glow in your heart’: THE NUTCRACKER – Birmingham Royal Ballet (Online review)
Integral to the festive Birmingham experience, the chance to watch this delightful production of The Nutcracker from home is a rare silver lining in an otherwise troubled month for the performing arts.
‘Will only go from strength to strength as the run continues’: A CHRISTMAS CAROL – Old Vic (Online review)
Andrew Lincoln brings a real gravitas to proceedings in A Christmas Carol, anchoring the production and delivering a performance of variety and skill that will leave you hoping he returns to the stage more often in the future.
‘Sparkles with ghostly Christmas chill’: A CHRISTMAS CAROL – Bridge Theatre
Filled with a real love of Dickens’ words as well as his characters the Bridge Theatre has found a fresh and exciting way to tell the familiar tale of A Christmas Carol and give Scrooge’s redemption arc a renewed emphasis.
‘Joseph Potter is more than a match for this quick-fire writing’: THE POLTERGEIST – Southwark Playhouse (Online review)
Philip Ridley’s play The Poltergeist made an intimate transition to the screen and will be unmissable as soon as live performances can be scheduled.
‘A triumph of ingenuity & responsiveness’: 15 HEROINES – Jermyn Street Theatre (Online theatre)
15 Heroines is an impressive and energised reworking of Greek myth that leaves the audience keen to find out more about each of these women and their remarkable lives.
Being a woman in Greek Mythology isn’t easy and for the most part they sit on the sidelines, forgotten sideshows to what are predominantly male narratives of war, conquest and feats of daring. Where women do feature, they are mere prizes to be won,…
‘Feels like a statement of intent’: CRAVE – Chichester Festival Theatre
A Sarah Kane play is by no means a safe option for any theatre looking to attract audiences back to its auditorium, but this bold and intriguing production of Crave at Chichester Festival Theatre was worth the risk.
‘Has an intimacy redolent of Graham’s earlier works’: BUBBLE – Nottingham Playhouse (Online review)
One of the highest profile events in Nottingham Playhouse’s Unlocked Festival was Bubble, a hybrid production, performed in-house and live streamed over the weekend to a potential international audience – a new James Graham comedy about life in lockdown.
‘Puts musical theatre at the top of the theatrical agenda’: SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD – London Palladium
This incredible concert version of Songs for a New World serves as an all-to-brief reminder of how it feels to listen to live music in an enclosed, traditional theatre space, responding to every note and beat.
‘Character investment is strong from the beginning’: AFTER YOU – TONIGHT AT THE LONDON COLISEUM (Online review)
After You is a brief but well constructed story about musical theatre’s favourite theme – love – but is less the straightforward tale of boy meets girl who live happily ever after. It is more a two-hander that plays with convention.
‘A story predicated on equality, mutual support & finding your own path’: ROMANTICS ANONYMOUS – Bristol Old Vic (Online review)
Romantics Anonymous is a story predicated on equality, mutual support and finding your own path as individuals (and as a couple) rather than waiting for someone else to come and save you from your life – implications that after years of rom coms and social messaging is subtly but usefully employed through a charmingly conceived but nonetheless carefully structured story.
‘Hytner has envisaged both stories with considerable care’: THE SHRINE / BED AMONG THE LENTILS – Bridge Theatre
The Bridge Theatre’s most savvy decision is in teaming The Shrine with Bed Among the Lentils, placing together two of our finest actors who effortless and regularly transition between stage and screen – Monica Dolan and Lesley Manville.
‘A play we are sure to see again & again’: THREE KINGS – Old Vic (Online review)
Good things come to those who wait, an axiom that applies in duplicate to Stephen Beresford’s latest play Three Kings screened via the Old Vic’s innovative In Camera series for just five performances.
‘Hare allows much more of his own personality to emerge’: BEAT THE DEVIL – Bridge Theatre
The first short play is Beat the Devil in which David Hare stakes first claim to what will surely be a new genre or at least a familiar theme in the coming months – the Covid monologue.
’An exhilarating return to live performance’: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR: THE CONCERT – Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre
Jesus Christ Superstar at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre may say concert on the poster but there is singing, dancing, performing and storytelling nine shows a week.
’As vivid as anything you saw on stage 5 months ago’: BLINDNESS – Donmar Warehouse
Ben and Max Ringham’s work for Blindness is a masterpiece, a 70-minute performance that layers story, sound effects, music and lighting design to immerse the audience in a pandemic experience.
‘Adds some dynamism’: THE SECRET LOVE LIFE OF OPHELIA – Greenwich Theatre (Online review)
The Greenwich Theatre production of The Secret Love Life of Ophelia showcases a selection of excellent young performers that inadvertently asks some big questions about how we cast Hamlet in the 21st century.
National Theatre at Home: Saving our lockdown & pointing the way for future engagement
The National Theatre really did save lockdown and made us appreciate our phenomenal creative industries, but they may also have inadvertently pointed the way for the future as surely as National Theatre Live did in 2009.