William Wycherley’s Restoration romp, The Country Wife, has been given a makeover in Jonathan Munby’s modern, monochrome production at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre.
Chichester Festival Theatre’s Festival 2018 season, announced today, will feature new plays by Laura Wade and Charlotte Jones and revivals of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen and musical Flowers For Mrs Harris.
Chichester Festival Theatre’s critically-acclaimed production of Shakespeare’s King Lear, starring Ian McKellen, will receive a West End transfer, running at the Duke of York’s Theatre for 100 performances only from 11 July to 3 November 2018.
The Weir is a piece of theatre that will remind you that at its best all you need are a few good voices with some well-chosen words for a thoroughly enthralling evening.
Any number of shows could have been included in this post; frankly it’s ludicrous that I decided to stick with my whole top 12 idea… As I’ve seen about 90 more individual shows than last year.
Much of my ‘touring’ has been concentrated in Bristol and Chichester; there are a few other UK venues to add to the list, as well as some from my week in New York, of course.
It’s a layered story that opens with a pub quiz, setting the scene for the world of obsessive competition fanatics, laying a direct trail from that bar to the gameshow hot-seat.
James Graham has turned his attention to national greed and our addiction to TV game shows for his latest factional stage play, Quiz, which opened last night on the Minerva stage at Chichester Festival Theatre.
“We in this country,” says the red judge grandly, “Do not have trial by media or by mobs”. Hmm. Tell that to anyone now staring confusedly at the wreckage of reputation and career because an employer’s took instant fright at a Twitterstorm.
Ian McKellen immediately makes the intimate space his own, the dialogue almost conversational and his Lear a warm-hearted soul with a twinkle in his eye. This is surely as good as it gets, an actor using every bit of knowledge he has acquired in a storied career to make his role feel so natural.
