Monthly Archives: September 2012

Ibsen turned a traditional period villainess into something infinitely more subtle and the role has attracted the greatest actresses. Sheridan Smith, so good in the musical Legally Blonde and Terence Rattigan’s Flare Path, may not yet be in the same … Continue reading →

Oscar Wilde predicted his future when he came down from Oxford University: “I’ll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I’ll be famous, and if not famous, I’ll be notorious.” There have been many plays, films, monologues … Continue reading →

Caryl Churchill’s text is daunting. Without names and stage directions, it could be anybody talking and the characters could be anywhere. 16 actors play over 100 people in 57 scenes in 110 minutes. The scenes are very short, many lasting … Continue reading →

Michael Attenborough (says the handbill) brings Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy to the intimacy of the Almeida stage. But King Lear is not an intimate play. It is immense, awesome in its all-shaking thunder, horrific in its cruelty, revolting in its tirades … Continue reading →

Tarell Alvin McCraney’s latest play is set is an American prep school for black boys. Designer Ultz has cleverly transformed the theatre into a school building with great hall, dorm and showers. Pharus (Dominic Smith), an intelligent, opinionated, outspoken, manipulative … Continue reading →

There have been many revivals of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Cabaret but no West End revival, since its London premiere in 1954, of John Van Druten’s I Am a Camera, the play on which they had based their 1966 … Continue reading →

Terence Frisby had a very bad experience with the Law during a lengthy divorce case and the script contains some bitter outbursts against the British justice system. A man (Tom Conti) confesses to killing his 9-month old severely brain-damaged baby … Continue reading →

The only French theatre which is regularly revived today in Britain is the plays of Molière and Feydeau. There was a time when the plays of Anouilh dominated the London stage; but that was a long time ago. French 19th … Continue reading →