Author Archives: tanitch

William Congreve’s The Way of the World, which premiered in 1700, is the last and generally considered the greatest of the Restoration comedies. The callous and cynical plot is so complicated that few have been able to follow it. James … Continue reading →

Caroline, Or Change at Hampstead Theatre is an adult musical for adult audiences. The subject matter is race relations between African-American and American Jews in 1963, the year of President Kennedy’s assassination and the rise of the Civil Rights Movement. … Continue reading →

Tennessee Williams’ elegiac and heartbreaking Summer and Smoke, a story of loneliness and unrequited love, which premiered in 1948, is, in the light of his later work, unexpectedly gentle and delicate. Rebecca Frecknall’s clever production at Almeida Theatre is a … Continue reading →

THE YORK REALIST, Peter Gill’s beautifully understated sad drama at Donmar Theatre, is totally confident in its kitchen-sink realism and unafraid to move at a slow pace. Premiered in 2002, it is a perfect companion piece for the working class … Continue reading →

Eugene O’Neill is America’s greatest playwright and LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT at Wyndham’s Theatre is his greatest play, an act of exorcism, written in tears and blood, and so autobiographical that he didn’t want it published until 25 years … Continue reading →

At Bridge Theatre you can stand or you can sit for Nicholas Hytner’s in-the-round, promenade production of JULIUS CAESAR, one of the best political thrillers ever written. It is always topical and will continue to be pertinent as long as … Continue reading →

At the National Theatre the 1976 Sidney Lumet/PaddyChayefsky film Network has been adapted for the stage by Lee Hall and its impact has not diminished one jot. The script is a biting satire on the corruptive power of TV and … Continue reading →

Cinderella has been a popular pantomime since 1830. But given a choice how would you prefer to see it performed? As a ballet to a score by Prokofiev? An opera by Rossini? A musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein? An animated … Continue reading →