Love London Love Culture’s Emma Clarendon discovers what critics have been saying about Brigid Larmour and Tracy-Ann Oberman’s new production of The Merchant of Venice 1936, currently on tour.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Noises Off at the Phoenix Theatre
Find out what is being said about the 40th anniversary production of Michael Frayn’s comedy Noises Off at London’s Phoenix Theatre with our review round up.
‘Frayn’s play has still got it’: NOISES OFF – Phoenix Theatre
Noises Off at the Phoenix Theatre is a fast-paced show that still demands an enormously skilled and precise technical performance from every member of its cast and Lindsay Posner’s team makes it look far easier than it really is. 40 years on, Michael Frayn’s play has still got it.
‘It’s just all very beautiful’: NOISES OFF – Bath & Touring ★★★★★
Millions know it by now, but in case like my enthralled companions last night you aren’t among them, grant me a moment or skip the the penultimate paragraph. Noises Off has been a national treasure since 1982, written by Michael Frayn after realising that the hurtling backstage business of doors, props and actors under stress is funnier than most actual farces. He wrote a squib called EXITS, the great producer Michael Codron encouraged something fuller.
‘Smoothly watchable’: JEWS. IN THEIR OWN WORDS – Royal Court Theatre
If you accept the documentary verbatim style of Jews. In Their Own Words at the Royal Court, and don’t mind the lack of any real drama, this is an intelligently crafted and committed piece of political theatre that tackles an issue too often swept under the carpet. But I’d love to see a proper play about the subject.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: The Windsors: Endgame at the Prince of Wales Theatre
Love London Love Culture rounds up the reviews for The Windsors: Endgame, the stage production based on the comedy series now playing for a limited time at the Prince of Wales Theatre.
‘Deliberately flirts with bad taste’: THE WINDSORS ENDGAME – Prince of Wales Theatre
In what Hamlet might call an e’er hasty marriage, The Windsors Endgame has been rushed into the Prince of Wales as a summer filler to temporarily replace one deliberately bad-taste show with a no-taste one, as The Book of Mormon remains on its Covid hiatus.
NEWS: Further casting announced for The Windsors: Endgame world premiere
Casting has been announced for the world premiere of George Jeffrie and Bert Tyler-Moore’s stage adaptation of their Channel 4 hit The Windsors, The Windsors: Endgame which will open at the Prince of Wales Theatre on 2 August 2021 with a press night on 10 August.
‘Atmospheric & absorbing short drama’: THAT DINNER OF ’67 – BBC Radio 4
With director Stanley Kramer’s making of the groundbreaking film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner as its subject matter, Tracy-Ann Oberman and David Spicer’s new radio drama has a compelling contemporary relevance.
‘The cast is excellent, especially Oberman’: MOTHER OF HIM – Park Theatre ★★★★
Mother of him is an emotional journey and a deep exploration of how far can the love of a mother go.
NEWS: Miriam Margolyes, Tracy-Ann Oberman & Meaghan Martin line up for new Park Theatre season
Park Theatre has announced its new July to December 2019 season. Featuring four world premiere productions, two UK and London premieres and a range of revivals from Broadway and the West End and featuring Miriam Margolyes, Tracy-Ann Oberman and Meaghan Martin.
‘Eminently watchable’: PINTER SIX – West End
One of the benefits in producing such a wide-ranging festival as Pinter at the Pinter has been the flexibility in its programming, allowing for thematic evenings to emerge as opposed to a straight chronological trip through the canon. So here, Jamie Lloyd is able to bring together two plays set at gatherings, both conveniently cast for nine people.
‘You’ll want to accept an invitation to this wonderful Pinter party’: PINTER SIX – West End
The purpose of Jamie Lloyd’s still and contained approach is extremely well and atmospherically realised by a top-notch cast who bring such clarity to Pinter Six’s social commentary.
‘Competent enough, but not particularly invigorating’: PACK OF LIES – Menier Chocolate Factory
The Cold War surveillance drama Pack of Lies is interesting enough, but its old-fashioned qualities are not an unmixed blessing.
‘Rarely is the emotional violence as beautifully evoked as here’: PACK OF LIES – Menier Chocolate Factory ★★★★★
Hugh Whitemore’s 1983 play Pack of Lies, immaculately set in every humble postwar detail, reconstructs a real case: the plight of a hapless suburban couple who found their daughter’s bedroom requisitioned for surveillance of the opposite neighbours.
NEWS: Alasdair Harvey & Tracy-Ann Oberman will join cast of Pack of Lies at the Menier Chocolate Factory
Full casting has been announced for the Menier Chocolate Factory’s major revival of Hugh Whitemore’s Pack of Lies. Hannah Chissick directs Jasper Britton as (Stewart), Sia Dauda (Sally), Alasdair Harvey (Peter Kroger), Chris Larkin (Bob Jackson), Macy Nyman (Julie Jackson), Tracy-Ann Oberman (Helen Kroger), Natalie Walter (Thelma) and Finty Williams (Barbara Jackson).
NEWS: Antony Sher, Penelope Wilton, Russell Tovey & others join all-star Pinter at Pinter
Further all-star casting has been announced for Jamie Lloyd Company’s Pinter at the Pinter, an unparalleled event featuring all twenty short plays written by Harold Pinter in the West End theatre that bears his name.
NEWS: Further casting for Pinter at the Pinter includes Keith Allen, Rupert Graves, Gary Kemp, John Simm & Maggie Steed
Keith Allen, Phil Davis, Paapa Essiedu, Rupert Graves, Gary Kemp, John Simm and Maggie Steed have joined the extraordinary company of Pinter at the Pinter, the unprecedented season featuring all 20 of Harold Pinter’s one-act plays, running from September 2018 to February 2019, to mark the tenth anniversary of the Nobel Prize winner’s death.
NEWS: Martin Freeman & Jane Horrocks among stars lined up for West End season of Harold Pinter short plays
Pinter at the Pinter, a unique event presented by the Jamie Lloyd Company, featuring all 20 one-act plays written by the great British playwright, will be performed in the theatre that bears his name from 6 September 2018 to 23 February 2019.
‘Light laughter for a light comedy’: PRESENT LAUGHTER – Chichester Festival Theatre ★★★★
The entire cast of Present Laughter executed every scene with a fabulous, animated, flamboyant energy yet there seemed to be an awful lot of unnecessary shouting throughout this production.