I’ve just gorged on the second series of Staged, the blissful second series of the actors-in-lockdown zoom show, directed and co-written by Simon Evans, with Michael Sheen and David Tennant playing (versions of) themselves.
‘You have to admire a creative response to this Coronavirus bullsh*t’: SEEDS / At YOUR PERIL (Online review)
A rare foray into the world of podcasts sees Ian Foster listening to the Nina Sosanya-starring Seeds and getting properly freaked out by horror anthology At Your Peril.
‘It’s a terrific play’: FROZEN – West End ★★★★
On a frozen snow-day at the Haymarket, I should record that instinctively most of a middling-thin matinee audience rose to its feet to applaud the three principals. Oh, and turning up late post-holiday, I bought my own stalls ticket and don’t regret it for a moment.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Frozen at the Theatre Royal Haymarket
Jonathan Munby’s production, starring Suranne Jones, has officially opened at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, running until 5 May 2018. Here’s what critics have had to say about it…
‘Gripping storytelling & brilliantly cast’: FROZEN– West End
This Frozen is a dark story, a revival of Bryony Lavery’s 1998 award-winning play about a child killer — definitely no singing, no dancing, no hummable tunes, but it does have an outstanding cast: Suranne Jones, Jason Watkins and Nina Sosanya.
‘Lavery makes the audience awkwardly complicit in her story’: FROZEN – Theatre Royal Haymarket
Well performed and interestingly staged, Frozen’s most important effect is in reflecting society’s unhealthy obsession with serious crime, making us complicit in its presentation as entertainment.
APOLOGIA – West End
There’s more than a touch of Bette Davis in The Anniversary in this Jamie Lloyd-directed version of Alexei Kaye Campbell’s acidulated family drama Apologia, now lightly Americanised to suit the talents of Stockard Channing.
YOUNG CHEKHOV – National Theatre
This trilogy, transferred from Chichester is an epic: a thrilling voyage through time to the earliest days of Anton Chekhov. And, if it is not too philistine a thing to murmur, it will draw to him even those people who don’t fire up with excitement at the later masterpieces – especially the often morosely played The Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters.
RECOMMENDATIONS: What’s hot. What’s cheap. What’s hot and cheap
Hot recommendations for summer theatregoing: Doctor Faustus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Toxic Avenger, The Threepenny Opera…
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Elegy at the Donmar Warehouse
This new play by Nick Payne stars Zoe Wanamaker,Nina Sosanya and Barbara Flynn and explores a world in which the brain is no longer a mystery to us and what the consequences of understanding it are. But what are critics saying about the new production at the Donmar Warehouse? The Guardian:**** Michael Billington wrote that: […]
ELEGY – Donmar Warehouse
New one from Nick Payne explores brain science and female relationships, but is just a bit too superficial.
Curtain Up: News from the last week in theatre, tickets on sale
The festive season is long gone, pantomimes have finished and hundreds of actors are putting away their Dame costumes for another year, the presents have been put away (or exchanged) and after a month of gorging ourselves on sweet treats there’s one last box of mince pies in the cupboard that we’re trying to resist! So, with the world getting back to normal it’s about time we caught up on recent theatre news.
NEWS: Zoe Wanamaker, Barbara Flynn and Nina Sosanya star in Nick Payne premiere
The Donmar announces full casting for the world premiere of Elegy by playwright Nick Payne. Directed by Artistic Director Josie Rourke, the full cast is Barbara Flynn as Carrie, Nina Sosanya as Miriam and Zoë Wanamaker as Lorna, all making a return to the Donmar stage. Elegy – which runs 27 April to 18 June 2016 (previews from 21 April) – imagines a very-near …
NEWS: Donmar Warehouse’s The Vote Achieves Record TV Viewing Figures
The live broadcast of The Vote from the Donmar Warehouse on More4 (Thursday 7 May 2015) attracted an audience of more than half a million, peaking at 555,000 viewers during its election night broadcast. This is the highest figure for a Donmar Warehouse production – with the previous record of 180,000 being set by Josie Rourke’s production of Coriolanus broadcast …
Where will you be on election night? I Vote for the Donmar
For the last General Election, on 6 May 2010, I went to a party at the Paramount Club at the top of Centrepoint. All night we waited up, for no dramatic climax, no result. This time round, I can’t imagine that any self-respecting, remotely politically minded, theatre lover will want to be anywhere but crammed […]