Monthly Archives: April 2012

Ask any British classical actor who his favourite playwrights are and he will almost certainly include Chekhov and this is not surprising since Chekhov has created so many unforgettable roles. Lucy Bailey has mustered a fine ensemble for her clear-eyed … Continue reading →

I enjoyed the film. I enjoyed the play. There is nothing like playing Sir Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance, if you want to make absolutely certain there is not a dry eye in the house when King George VI delivers … Continue reading →

Boris Eifman, one of Russia’s most popular choreographers, says he is creating theatre but I never felt what I was watching had anything to do with either Tolstoy or Pushkin. Eifman has very oddly updated Onegin to 1991 and the … Continue reading →

This is the first fully staged professional UK production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s final operetta since its premiere in 1896. There is a very good reason for this delay: it wasn’t and still isn’t any good. Sullivan’s score is tuneful; … Continue reading →

John Webster’s sensational corpse-ridden Jacobean thriller tells a cynical story of lust and violence in a corrupt Italian Renaissance court. This revival, which has a striking palatial set by Soutra Gilmour, is particularly notable for the crystal clarity of the … Continue reading →

Errol John’s much neglected Caribbean classic won first prize in an Observer competition in 1957. The play is set in the backyard slums of the Port of Spain where all the characters are struggling to make a living and can … Continue reading →

Stephen Sondheim’s musical about seven of the thirteen people who killed or attempted to kill the President of the United States caused outrage, premiering, as it did, just as the Americans were about to go to war in the Gulf. … Continue reading →

It’s not a play, it’s a mural. Arthur Miller’s unsatisfactory panoramic documentary-cum-fiction, which is based on his own memories and Studs Terkel’s Hard Times, An Oral History of the Great Depression, was described by him as “dramatic vaudeville” and it … Continue reading →