The Writer makes a strong case for theatre as a place to debate the most urgent issues of the day and prove that, for some women, experimenting with form is not an option, but a necessity.
‘Only half the production really delivers’: THE WRITER – Almeida Theatre
The Writer is and should be a show that will divide audiences, but while the piece is pointed social commentary, it also has dramatic flaws that start to put out its own fire.
‘If this is feminism & a plea for creativity I am a banana’: THE WRITER – Almeida Theatre ★★
In The Writer the bastards (the patriarchy) are also in charge of the arts: ruining creative women’s holy myths by mentioning squalid things like the need to sell tickets for the Sacred Space that is Theatre.
NEWS: Michael Gould, Lara Rossi & Samuel West join the cast of The Writer at the Almeida
Samuel West, Michael Gould and Lara Rossi will join the previously announced Romola Garai in the world premiere of Ella Hickson’s The Writer at the Almeida Theatre, directed by Blanche McIntyre.
FosterIAN Awards for Best Supporting Actress
Thinking about this most well-received of plays, it is the role of Aunt Maggie Faraway who lingers most in my mind, the elegiac beauty of her speeches an elegant way of folding in traditions of Irish storytelling and emphasising the deep bonds of family.
QUEEN ANNE – West End
Helen Edmundson’s play is a study in humanity’s need for dominance, especially as much as it is a historical romp.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Queen Anne at the Theatre Royal Haymarket
Emma Cunniffe and Romola Garai star in Helen Edmundson’s play Queen Anne. The Royal Shakespeare Company production, directed by Natalie Abrahami, continues at the West End’s Theatre Royal Haymarket until 30 September 2017. Here’s what critics have been saying about it.
QUEEN ANNE – West End
Edmundson’s delicate rhythm and powerful bursts of monosyllable (“What mean the Scots? What irks them now?”) are as fresh and sharp as ever. Don’t miss it.
NEWS: Further casting announced for RSC’s West End transfer of Queen Anne
The full cast has been announced today that will join, Romola Garai (as Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough) and Emma Cunniffe as the eponymous monarch in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Queen Anne in the West End.
NEWS: Romola Garai & Emma Cunniffe lead RSC’s Queen Anne to West End’s Haymarket
Romola Garai will star as Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough alongside Emma Cunniffe as the eponymous monarch in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Queen Anne in the West End.
NEWS: RSC adapts Robert Harris’ Cicero novels for stage; New season announced
Royal Shakespeare Company Artistic Director Gregory Doran today announced the company’s winter 2017 season, including the world premiere of Imperium, an epic, two-part page-to-stage adaptation of Robert Harris‘ best-selling novels about Roman politician Cicero, adapted by Wolf Hall‘s Mike Poulton and directed by Doran, and the West End transfer of Helen Edmundson‘s new play Queen Anne, starring Romola Garai and Emma …
Weekly Theatre Podcast: Measure for Measure, Wars of the Roses, Dinner with Saddam
This week the AULTP bloggers discuss two Measure for Measures, at the Globe versus the Young Vic, Trevor Nunn’s revival of Shakespearean epic The Wars of The Roses, and new comedy Dinner with Saddam.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE – Young Vic
Shakespeare’s strangest and nastiest play is a kind of black farce where the reckless dash to redemption makes the redemption itself – forgiveness, reconciliation, all is sort of forgiven – seem like an afterthought. Joe Hill-Gibbins is having none of it and dives into the play’s intractable vision of a city, a culture, a world, caught in a spiral of skewed morality with almost indecent relish. It’s all noise and garage music and a tangle of exhausted blow-up sex dolls. And it moves so fast (1 hour 50, no interval) that the lines between sin and retribution and perpetually blurred.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE – Young Vic
Sex is at this play’s core. But it’s not sexy in the slightest. It’s a means of leverage, abuse, it’s a crime, a threat. Each of the 50 or so plastic sex dolls strewn across the stage make you want to stew in hot bleach. You can taste the immorality of this Vienna.
NEWS: John Heffernan & Anna Maxwell Martin star in Macbeth at Young Vic, more casting
The Young Vic has today (14 August 2015) announced new casting for several of its upcoming productions, including: John Heffernan as Macbeth, Anna Maxwell Martin as Lady Macbeth in Carrie Cracknell & Lucy Guerin’s production Paul Ready and Zubin Varla join Romola Garai in Measure for Measure directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins – additional performances on sale now Emily Barclay and …