Monthly Archives: February 2012

Alan Ayckbourn has always had a soft spot for this sad comedy. Written in 1974, it was a major turning point in career and his middle-class suburban dramas from then on became bleaker and bleaker. The play has two themes: … Continue reading →

Oliver Goldsmith’s 18th century comedy is one of the most delightful plays in the English language. Good-humoured, affectionate and beautifully constructed, it is based on something that actually had happened to Goldsmith in his youth. He mistook the country house … Continue reading →

Punch made his first recorded appearance in London 350 years ago. That inveterate theatregoer, Samuel Pepys, saw a performance in Covent Garden on May 9, 1622. Julian Crouch’s production, aimed at adults, is the most innovative take on the hook-nosed … Continue reading →

Stefan Golaszewski writes in incredibly short scenes, many lasting seconds rather than minutes, with jump-cuts and black-outs. The dialogue could not be more banal; but it is what is going on underneath and not being articulated which is the real … Continue reading →

Maria Callas, in the early 1970s, when her voice had gone and her career was over, held a number of master classes at the Juilliard School in New York to which the public were invited. Terrence McNally’s play, which won … Continue reading →

Britain in 1923 was still mourning the millions who had died in World War 1 and from Spanish flu. Sutton Vane’s morality play was a huge hit in London not least because it gave comfort to the bereaved. It succeeded … Continue reading →

Thomas Middleton and William Rowley knew exactly what a Jacobean audience liked and in 1622 they gave it to them in spades: a sensational and degenerate mix of lust, murder, madness, rape, arson, mutilation, virginity tests and bed-swapping. Beatrice-Joanna is … Continue reading →

Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacace, champion dancers, best known to the public through the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing have brought their touring show briefly to the West End. It is fascinating to watch the dazzlingly footwork, the criss-crossing, interweaving legs … Continue reading →