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.
Looking back on the last two plague years: Part 1, The Onset
I set out to chronicle and celebrate the return of live theatre since May 2021. And this will follow. But when I totted up the 2021 score – 60 theatre nights, 30 being completely new plays and 19 brand-new productions – it seemed to me only decent to pause, look back at the year before.
‘Reaching out for the meaning of those moments of eternity’: FOUR QUARTETS – West End ★★★★★
This is wonderful. Sometimes a simple short performance can shake, rouse, even change you.
‘Ralph Fiennes delivers a quite mesmeric performance’: FOUR QUARTETS – West End
Translating poetry to the stage can be challenging for both performer and audience, the importance of the language while alive and vivid on the page can feel verbose or intangible, even static, when read aloud.
NEWS: West End transfer is announced for Ralph Fiennes’ Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Royal & Derngate, Northampton have announcd that Ralph Fiennes’ world premiere stage adaptation of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets will transfer to London’s Harold Pinter Theatre for 36 performances only from 18 November to 18 December 2021.
Mark Shenton’s weekly chart of forthcoming theatrical comings & goings has some new entries
This weekly column keeps track of the shows that are coming back, or are newly being announced, as theatres prepare to re-open from next month onwards. It will be updated weekly until such time as it becomes a reality, and from then on will provide a weekly update to that week’s openings and future ones.
Returning & new productions heading for the West End & beyond post-lockdown: Are you up to date?
Meanwhile, I want to start keeping track of the shows that are coming back, or are newly being announced, in a new feature here that will be updated weekly until such time as it becomes a reality, and from then on will provide a weekly update to that week’s openings and future ones.
NEWS: Ralph Fiennes will star in & direct new regional tour of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets
Ralph Fiennes will create a brand-new stage adaptation of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets this summer. Announced this week as Britain marks a year since regional theatres were forced to close, this world premiere production will welcome audiences back to live theatre when it reopens the Theatre Royal Bath from 25 May to 5 June, and launches Royal & Derngate’s Made in Northampton season in the venue’s Royal auditorium from 8 to 12 June in a co-production between both venues.
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.
‘It’s all true & refreshing & beautifully made’: BEAT THE DEVIL – Bridge Theatre ★★★★
Covid-19 must have its say to start with, so off goes the season with Ralph Fiennes directed by Nicholas Hytner and delivering Beat The Devil, a monologue by David Hare.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Beat the Devil at the Bridge Theatre
Emma Clarendon rounds up the reviews for David Hare’s new monologue Beat the Devil, performed by Ralph Fiennes at the Bridge Theatre.
‘Hare allows much more of his own personality to emerge’: BEAT THE DEVIL – Bridge Theatre
The first short play is Beat the Devil in which David Hare stakes first claim to what will surely be a new genre or at least a familiar theme in the coming months – the Covid monologue.
‘Intermittently affecting blend of personal struggle & political outrage’: BEAT THE DEVIL – Bridge Theatre
David Hare gets in first with his Coronavirus monologue Beat The Devil at the Bridge Theatre, evocatively performed by Ralph Fiennes.
NEWS: Bridge Theatre announces plans to reopen with star-studded rep season
London Theatre Company has announced its repertoire plans to reopen the Bridge Theatre during September and October 2020, “assuming that the Government gives the go ahead for indoor performances with socially distanced audiences”.
‘Ralph Fiennes & Sophie Okonedo are well matched’: ANTONY & CLEOPATRA – National Theatre (Online review)
I’ve always found Antony and Cleopatra a bit of a slog. There, I’ve said it. Too many scenes which flit about all over the place, too many minor inconsequential characters, deaths which seem interminable.
NEWS: National Theatre At Home screens two versions of Frankenstein plus Antony & Cleopatra
After the popularity of its lockdown streamings of One Man, Two Guvnors, Jane Eyre, Treasure Island and tonight’s Twelfth Night to coincide with Shakespeare’s Birthday (23 April 2020), the National Theatre has announced its next two At Home titles: Danny Boyle’s 2011 monster hit Frankenstein and Simon Godwin’s production of Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra.
NEWS: Big wins for Company, Hamilton & the National Theatre’s Antony & Cleopatra at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2018
The winners of the 64th Evening Standard Theatre Awards have been announced, with double wins for the National Theatre’s Antony & Cleopatra and the West End productions of Company and Hamilton.
NEWS: National Theatre leads the Evening Standard Theatre Awards with 14 nominations
The shortlist for the 64th Evening Standard Theatre Awards has been unveiled. The winners will be announced on Sunday 18 November at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
‘Often feels confused’: ANTONY & CLEOPATRA – National Theatre
Antony & Cleopatra, clocking in at three hours and 30 minutes, is a tale of two halves (you really do only get one interval).