Under Milk Wood is a perfect piece to contemplate after a year when the shrinking worlds of lockdown made every neighbourhood a village and every one of us was connected in fate and behaviour whether we liked it or not.
NEWS: Olivier & Dorfman Theatres will reopen in June 2021 with Under Milk Wood & Jack Thorne’s new play After Life
The National Theatre has announces plans to reopen in June, welcoming audiences back to the South Bank for the first time since closing last December. The Olivier Theatre will reopen on 16 June 2021 with Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. The Dorfman Theatre will reopen on 2 June for the first time since February 2020 with the previously announced co-production with Headlong, After Life written by Jack Thorne and directed by Jeremy Herrin.
NEWS: National Theatre will stage The Normal Heart starring Ben Daniels as part of Olivier in-the-round season
The National Theatre has announced that a production of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, directed by Dominic Cooke, will be presented as part of the Olivier in-the-round season in February 2021 in a co-production with Fictionhouse.
‘Hard not to be impressed’: MY BRILLIANT FRIEND – National Theatre
Melly Still’s reworking of April De Angelis’ adaptation of My Brilliant Friend gives the show both a flowing and episodic quality as the interior monologue of the protagonist in the books is replaced by fully dramatised scenes.
‘Bonkers in a wonderful way’: PETER GYNT – National Theatre ★★★★
David Hare has made as much sense of Ibsen’s sprawling masterpiece Peer Gynt as seems possible.
’An intoxicating, vibrant, infectious set of tunes’: HADESTOWN – National Theatre ★★★★★
Hadestown’s journey onto the stage of the National Theatre – and, indeed, its upcoming transfer to Broadway – has been as tortuous and precarious as the story it tells.
‘Painfully relevant & beautifully moving’: HADESTOWN – National Theatre ★★★★★
Folky, emotive, excellently performed and ever relevant, the National Theatre’s production of Hadestown is a grand triumph.
‘The staging brilliantly respects the pivotal emotional changes of the play’: ANTONY & CLEOPATRA – National Theatre ★★★★★
Antony & Cleopatra can be a bit of an ordeal. The last RSC one was. So I am happy to say that this time, and in the trickily vast Olivier, director Simon Godwin has absolutely pulled it off .
‘Bloody marvellous it is’: TRANSLATIONS – National Theatre ★★★★★
It was time the Oliviers had an inspiring success again, and Translations is it. It ought to run longer. It ought to be in cinemas and touring.
A round-up of reservations about where to sit – and what on – in fringe theatre…
Not that seating is perfect in many venues, but there are probably fewer things to consider. If you’re like me, however, and spend the vast majority of your time trundling around the Fringe, you’ll likely have begun to compile your own list of gripes.
‘A dystopian look at one of Shakespeare’s most well-known plays’: MACBETH – National Theatre ★★★★
Macbeth at the National Theatre is a dystopian look at one of Shakespeare’s most well-known plays, ushering in a new dark age in the aftermath of civil war – Anne-Marie Duff and Nicholas Karimi truly lead the way with compelling performances.
‘It’s Anne-Marie Duff who steals the show’: MACBETH – National Theatre ★★★
If you’re a Shakespeare fan then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go and judge Rufus Norris’ Macbeth for yourself, but if not then I wouldn’t rush along, as I don’t think this is the production to make you a fan.
‘A red-trousered disappointment’: MACBETH – National Theatre
A whole lot of post-apocalyptic hurly-burly and sadly not much more besides – the National Theatre’s Macbeth really is something of a red-trousered disappointment.
‘A huge missed opportunity’: MACBETH – National Theatre
Here at the National, as with many other attempts, the production’s vision lacks real purpose and fails to engage with the complex motivation of Macbeth himself, leaving him and us nowhere to go.
NEWS: Colin Morgan & Ciarán Hinds to star in Brian Friel’s Translations at the National Theatre, War Horse returns
Casting has been announced for the new National Theatre season, with highlights include Colin Morgan and Ciarán Hinds in Brian Friel’s Translations.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Amadeus at the National Theatre
Now back at the National’s Olivier Theatre until 24 April 2018, Michael Longhurst’s production of Amadeus stars Adam Gillen and Lucian Msamati as Mozart and Salieri. Here’s what critics have made of the production’s return to London…
SAINT GEORGE & THE DRAGON – National Theatre ★★★
The National Theatre’s current production of Saint George and the Dragon is a modern and ambitious twist on the traditional folk tale of Saint George the dragon-slayer. Described as “a folk tale for an uneasy nation” this production time travels from the medieval times all the way to the current day.
OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD – National Theatre
DRAMA AS REDEMPTION From the first moments Nadia Fall’s production sets brutal, bullying humanity against a hot, strange, majestic Australian dawn. A lone aborigine watches, silent on a great dark bare plain , as the land heaves beneath him and … Continue reading →
Diary of a Theatre Addict: Three Continents, Two Islands, 11 Shows, 1 Film
I woke up last Saturday in Africa and today I’ve woken up in New York. In between, I’ve also been back home in London, so I’ve been on three continents in the space of a week, or at any rate one huge continent and two comparatively tiny islands, namely mainland UK and Manhattan.
THE BEAUX’ STRATAGEM – National Theatre
Towering staircases and sliding panels transform the big stage from tavern to genteel house, with a pleasingly inexplicable intermittent folk-band lurking on the top landing. Here for two and a half frenzied hours Simon Godwin zingily interprets George Farquar’s Restoration comedy with a cast of 21, not one part a dud. It is farce bordering on panto, edged with songs, enlivened with scuffles, glorified with random absurdities and containing a hard nugget of feminist polemic.
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