Site specific theatre hasn’t been easy over the last eighteen months – in fact you can take out the first two words of that statement. It’s been tricky enough getting regular venues open, let alone some of the more esoteric settings which were used before you know what kicked off. A production that it would probably be almost impossible to revive now is Clare Bayley’s The Container which happened at the Young Vic in 2009. Set in an actual shipping container near to the theatre it allowed for just 28 audience members each time crammed onto uncomfortable benches around the perimeter with a narrow central strip for the 6 performers to use. 34 bodies in close proximity packed into a metal box with no sense of social distancing and not a mask to be seen; even Covid deniers might baulk.
‘Just a bit too educational to be truly pleasurable’: CHANGING DESTINY – Young Vic Theatre
The Young Vic’s main stage reopens with Booker Prize winner Ben Okri’s short play Changing Destiny, directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah
NEWS: New plays by Ben Okri & James Graham feature in the Young Vic’s new season
Young Vic artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah has announced a new season of work, Welcome Back and Welcome Home, welcoming theatre-makers and audiences back through the doors for the first time since the venues’s 50th Birthday celebrations in October 2020.
NEWS: Nimax Theatres, the Criterion Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre & more receive awards in the Culture Recovery Fund second round
Nimax Theatres, the Criterion Theatre, Young Vic and Chichester Festival Theatre are among the 2,700 organisations being offered nearly £400 million in grants and loans as part of the CultureRecovery Fund’s second tranche of funding.
From Waterloo to Wales: Welcome headlines feature groundbreaking creatives of past & present
Mark Shenton welcomes headlines featuring Stratford East, the National, the British Library and community involvement from Waterloo to Wales.
‘Will be just the kind of theatre magic we’ve all been waiting for’: SWINGIN’ THE DREAM – RSC (Online review)
The RSC, Young Vic and Theatre for a New Audience have a difficult but fascinating task ahead in re-creating lost work Swingin’ the Dream that honours the original while offering something new to modern audiences.
‘It has been a bit like the Wild West’: Recognising those pioneers extending the digital frontier
While Matthew Warchus at the other end of the Cut from the Young Vic, may have the Old Vic that he presides over (without any subsidy) dark, too, actually the theatre has been in use regularly and has continued to produce throughout the pandemic, with its “In Camera” broadcasts of live performances that have been staged in its empty auditorium.
NEWS: NT launches new streaming service National Theatre at Home
The National Theatre, in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, has launched National Theatre at Home, a brand-new streaming platform making their much-loved productions available online to watch anytime, anywhere worldwide.
NEWS: Winners of the Black British Theatre Awards 2020 are announced
The first televised Black British Theatre Awards 2020 were a vibrant affair hosted by presenter and comedic actor Eddie Nestor, filmed at London’s Young Vic Theatre and broadcast on Sky Arts.
NEWS: Three prizes each for & Juliet, Dear Evan Hansen & Emilia as Olivier Awards 2020 winners are announced
The winners of the Olivier Awards 2020 with Mastercard were announced in a special ITV programme filmed at The London Palladium, and on Official London Theatre’s YouTube channel.
NEWS: The Inheritance receives 11 Tony Awards 2020 nominations
Stephen Daldry has been nominated in the Best Director category for his staging of Matthew Lopez’s The Inheritance, originally at London’s Young Vic Theatre before its West End transfer to the Noel Coward Theatre. The Olivier Award-winning play which transferred to Broadway in November 2019 received 11 nominations.
‘Piece after piece remains with you after the performance’: THE NEW TOMORROW – Young Vic (Online review)
Although a rather more muted celebration than originally planned, The New Tomorrow is a powerful acknowledgment of the theatre’s ongoing mission to be a real centre for the community.
Rev Stan marks the Young Vic’s 50th Birthday with a pick of her favourite productions
The Young Vic is celebrating its 50th birthday and while I’ve only been visiting since 2007-ish, I’ve seen many fantastic and memorable plays there in that time.
NEWS: Special installations & live theatre feature in Young Vic’s 50th birthday celebrations
Kwame Kwei-Armah, artistic director of the Young Vic, has announced the start of the Young Vic’s 50th birthday with a year-long programme of work entitled We are the New Tide, dedicated to the theatre’s milestone birthday.
The best play I’ve seen for each of the past 10 years (aka the agony-to-choose list)
Not to let a decade of theatre bloggery go by without marking the occasion, to kick things off, I’ve compiled a list of my favourite play for each year I’ve been blogging. It has been fun revisiting my best-of lists but absolute agony narrowing each list down to just one.
NEWS: Death Of A Salesman, Rosmersholm, Cyrano plus & Juliet lead the Olivier Awards 2020 nominations
The nominations have been announced for this year’s Olivier Awards which take place on 5 April 2020 at the Royal Albert Hall.
Best of the Blogs: Leopoldstadt, Far Away, Nora, People Show 137 & more
In our continuing series, editor Lisa Martland picks out some of her Top Picks from the last week of theatre (to 16 February 2020) including Maryam Philpott’s thoughts on Tom Stoppard’s new play Leopoldstadt at the Wyndham’s Theatre.
NEWS: Acting honours for Andrew Scott, Sharon D Clarke & Juliet Stevenson & Jamie Lloyd is named Best Director at Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards
Andrew Scott, Sharon D. Clarke, Juliet Stevenson, Sam Tutty and Hammed Animashaun have won the top acting honours at the 2019 Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards.
Mind the Blog reflects on a theatre wish list for 2020
Mind the Blog has a fairly wide-ranging wish list of things I hope to see, including major shows such as Sunday in the Park with George, Evita, Magic Goes Wrong, Uncle Vanya and the Jamie Lloyd Company residency at the Playhouse Theatre.
Decade Round-Up: The Plays
This isn’t a ‘best of’ list it’s my best-of list, these are the plays that shaped me this decade and will stay with me well into the next.