Daniel Mays has played a lot of tough-guy roles but has by nature a rather innocent and worried-looking face. It is this quality that Nicholas Hytner spotted as perfect for his Nathan Detroit in Guys & Dolls at the Bridge Theatre: lowlife but hapless, indecisive about the faff and cost of marrying his tolerant fiancee of 14 years standing, Miss Adelaide (an irresistible Marisha Wallace).
‘When it fully works, it’s wonderful’: GUYS & DOLLS – Bridge Theatre ★★★★
For any theatre enthusiast who has been living under a rock, Nicholas Hytner’s new production of Guys & Dolls at the Bridge Theatre is unique because it is immersive, in the manner of this venue’s previous acclaimed versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Julius Caesar.
‘Never a false note’: JOHN GABRIEL BORKMAN – Bridge Theatre ★★★★★
In great plays a scene, character or domestic confrontation can be both appalling and comic: pity, terror and barks of shocked laughter are not incompatible even within a sentence. Ibsen knew that, but in the Norwegian rebel’s grim late works it takes a relaxed director and some weapons-grade actors to keep that balance. Cue Nicholas Hytner, Simon Russell Beale and Lia Williams: rescuing, for me and for good, a play (John Gabriel Borkman at the Bridge Theatre) I hated last time I saw it.
‘The hero is evoked beautifully in every line & gesture by Alex Jennings’: THE SOUTHBURY CHILD – Chichester Festival Theatre ★★★★★
The Southbury Child is a fine play, sharply written with some really strong unexpected laughs and a heartstopping ending. Its subtleties of character ask a great deal (not in vain) from the cast.
‘Ralph Fiennes is in his element as a man whose tragic flaw will clearly be his downfall’: STRAIGHT LINE CRAZY – Bridge Theatre
David Hare’s new play is a history lesson. New York city planner Robert Moses shaped the modern city by supplying it with expressways and parkways.
‘Ralph Fiennes gives it everything… He is irresistible’: STRAIGHT LINE CRAZY – Bridge Theatre ★★★★
It is not often I resort to drawing in the notebook, but there it is: half an hour into the first part of David Hare’s play about the city planner Robert Moses, whose demonic energy built modern New York between the 1920s and the ’60s.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: The Book of Dust at the Bridge Theatre
On LoveLondonLoveCulture, Emma Clarendon rounds up the reviews for the premiere stage adaptation of Philip Pullman’s fantasy tale The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage, now at London’s Bridge Theatre.
‘A big show in an edgy time’: THE BOOK OF DUST – La Belle Sauvage – Bridge Theatre ★★★★
First things first: this is the most wonderfully evocative, romantic and dramatic bit of set-projection you will see all year.
NEWS: Nicholas Hytner directs Alex Jennings in the world premiere of The Southbury Child
Three-time Olivier award-winning Alex Jennings will lead the cast in the world premiere of The Southbury Child, the new play by BAFTA winner Stephen Beresford directed by Nicholas Hytner.
NEWS: Chichester’s 60th-anniversary festival includes new plays by Kate Mosse, Alecky Blythe & Stephen Beresford
Chichester Theatre has announced details for the first productions of its 60th-anniversary festival season. The full 2022 Festival season will be unveiled in February.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Bach & Sons at the Bridge Theatre
Find out what critics have had to say about the world premiere of Nina Raine’s new play Bach & Sons at the Bridge Theatre.
NEWS: Dates announced for The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage at the Bridge Theatre
Dates are now confirmed for Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage at the Bridge Theatre. Directed by Nicholas Hytner in Bryony Lavery’s new stage adaptation which takes place 12 years before Pullman’s epic His Dark Materials trilogy, performances are from 2 December 2021 to 19 February 2022 with opening night on 14 December.
‘It is the music of its humanity which echoes long afterwards’: BACH & SONS – Bridge Theatre ★★★★★
Bach & Sons at the Bridge Theatre is a lovely play: domestic and intellectual, dryly wise and recklessly passionate. It harmonizes the bawdy and the holy, the loving and the lyrical.
NEWS: The world premiere of Nina Raine’s Bach & Sons at the Bridge Theatre will star Simon Russell Beale
Simon Russell Beale will play JS Bach in the world premiere of Nina Raine’s Bach & Sons, directed by Nicholas Hytner at the Bridge Theatre from 23 June to 9 September 2021 with opening night on 29 June 2021.
‘A miniature theatrical perfection’: A CHRISTMAS CAROL – Bridge Theatre ★★★★★
A Scrooge to remember, A Christmas Carol at the Bridge Theatre is a 90-minute familiar Victoriana for today, catching and passing on both Dickens’ fury and his unquenchable jollity.
‘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.
‘The quality of this production shines through’: Phèdre – National Theatre (Online review)
Following news that the National Theatre has launched its much anticipated streaming service National Theatre At Home, John Chapman goes back to 2009 and NT Live’s very first live streamed production on cinema screens, Helen Mirren in Phèdre.
NEWS: Simon Russell Beale, Patsy Ferran & Eben Figueiredo will play all the roles in Bridge Theatre’s A Christmas Carol
Simon Russell Beale, Patsy Ferran and Eben Figueiredo will play all the parts and share the storytelling in a new version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, directed and devised by Nicholas Hytner at London’s Bridge Theatre.
NEWS: Bridge Theatre extends season as Talking Heads shows visit Sheffield & Leeds
Additional performances have gone on sale for David Hare’s Beat the Devil and Inua Ellams’ and Fuel’s production of An Evening with an Immigrant, the one-person plays at London’s Bridge Theatre now extended until 7 November 2020.
‘Blends wry reminiscence, personal experience, poetry & music’: AN EVENING WITH AN IMMIGRANT – Bridge Theatre
This is a masterly revival of An Evening with an Immigrant, Inua Ellams’ 2016 autobiographical one-man show which is both poetic and engaging.