OLD MEN DO NOT FORGET Peter Gill’s new play has a melancholy beauty about it; it’s a sort of poem as the veteran playwright and director engages with age, regret and memory. The one-act, hour-long piece, performed … Continue reading →
‘The cast contrast & balance each other’: SMALL CHANGE – Omnibus Theatre
Both Barrels Theatre’s revival of Peter Gill’s 1976 Small Changes looks back to postwar Cardiff through the eyes of two Catholic, working-class families.
‘A revival to savour’: SMALL CHANGE – Omnibus Theatre ★★★★
First presented at the Royal Court in 1976 and last seen in London in a starry 2008 revival directed by the author, Peter Gill’s knotty, elegiac text is a dense, tense jumble of memory play, kitchen sink drama, poetry and gay love story. Dipping back and forth in time between the mid 1950s and the mid 1970s in working class Cardiff, it still packs a powerful punch as it raises questions of where do you come from versus where you are now, and what it emotionally cost you to get there.
‘A subject that deserves to be heard, but it’s not the right space’: NIGHTFALL – Bridge Theatre
Named as one of the 1,000 most influential Londoners by the Evening Standard, Barney Norris’ latest play, Nightfall, has just opened at the very high-profile Bridge Theatre.
‘Embraces silence & precision’: THE YORK REALIST – Sheffield
Robert Hastie once said that the director’s role is “to provide the clearest conduit between a writer and an actor”. Such an approach, effectively of getting in the way as little as possible, perfectly suits the prosaic dialogue of Peter Gill’s 2001 play The York Realist.
‘Rendered perfect’: THE YORK REALIST – Donmar Warehouse ★★★★
Peter Gill’s 2002 play, The York Realist, which won plaudits but not universal acclaim at first, is rendered in the Donmar’s intimacy by director Robert Hastie as something perfect: delicate, clear and natural as an upland brook.
‘Beautifully moving & genuinely funny’: THE YORK REALIST – Donmar Warehouse ★★★★
The York Realist at the Donmar Warehouse is a glorious show which creeps up on you slowly, naturally and beautifully. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend 130 minutes.
‘This tale of impossible love clutches at your heart’: The York Realist – Donmar Warehouse
Nothing feels rushed in Robert Hastie’s wonderful new production of The Yor Realist at the Donmar Warehouse, allowing this beautifully sad production to really touch the heart. A modern classic and a Yorkshire Brief Encounter indeed.
NEWS: Jonathan Bailey joins York Realist, Full cast announced for Donmar & Sheffield
Jonathan Bailey has been cast as John alongside, as previously announced, Ben Batt as George and Lesley Nicol as George’s mother in Robert Hastie’s major new production of Peter Gill’s 2001 play The York Realist.
NEWS: Frost/Nixon & world premiere of Chicken Soup lead Sheffield’s 2018 season
Peter Morgan’s Frost/Nixon receives its regional premiere in Sheffield Theatres’ 2018 season, along with the world premiere of Chicken Soup. and major revivals of The York Realist, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information.
NEWS: James Norton & Imogen Poots star in UK premiere of Belleville in new Donmar season
British screen stars James Norton and Imogen Poots will star in the UK premiere of American playwright Amy Herzog’s acclaimed play Belleville at London’s Donmar Warehouse. The production, directed by Michael Longhurst, is one of three new shows announced today for winter 2017/2018.
Queer Theatre at the National: Certain Young Men
Following the lives of four gay couples and told predominantly in duologues, it had the slight sense of yet another version of La Ronde as established pairings disintegrate and new ones reform.
NEWS: Queer theatre events announced at the National Theatre
A group of world class actors and directors will look at how theatre has charted the LGBT+ experience through a series of rehearsed readings and post-show discussions in the Lyttelton Theatre. And looking at the list of readings announced below, it’s good to see a diversity of sexualities being represented.
NEWS: Robert Hastie announces his inaugural Sheffield season, opens with Julius Caesar
Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres Robert Hastie has announced his inaugural season for 2017, which includes, at the Crucible, his own productions of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and The Wizard of Oz, major class revivals of Desire Under the Elms and Uncle Vanya, two world premieres and a regional premiere.
INTERVIEW (pt2): Barney Norris on Peter Gill, Van Gogh writing and theatres as ’empathy engines’
Playwright Barney Norris has followed his award-winning debut Visitors with Eventide, which is now running at London’s Arcola Theatre before touring until 15 November 2015, care of Up in Arms, the theatre company he co-founded with director Alice Hamilton. I’m a huge fan of Barney, both as a great writer and a great thinker. In this second […]
Casting Women of a Certain Age in As Good a Time as Any and Product
Since producing and hosting a post-show debate last month on “Women in the Arts” at Trafalgar Studios, I’ve been thinking a lot about gender inequality in theatre, and particularly in casting. And two recent plays I’ve seen have brought the subject of into even sharper focus for me – both highlighting the problem and providing […]