Monthly Archives: November 2012

The Apollo stage has been transformed into an Elizabethan hall such as Shakespeare’s own company might have acted in at the Inns of Court. Some members of the audience sit on stage. The house lights remain on in the auditorium … Continue reading →

A widow lies about her age and passes off her 19-year-old son as a 14-year-old with disastrous results for her husband and herself. Arthur Wing Pinero’s farces were once all the rage. His satires on bourgeois morality and hypocrisy were … Continue reading →

Russian playwright Alex Arbuzov follows the fortunes of three teenagers who survived the horrific siege of Leningrad in World War 2 which lasted 900 days and killed 600,000. Their idealistic optimism turns to bitter disillusionment in the post-Stalin era when … Continue reading →

Nick Payne’s 70-minute play, directed by Michael Longhurst, has successfully transferred from the Royal Court to the West End. A professional beekeeper and quantum cosmologist meet. How will their relationship develop? Payne shows that at any given moment several outcomes … Continue reading →

Alan Bennett’s amusing satire is set in a grand old stately home in South Yorkshire. Built in 1465, cold and damp, it is sorely in need of repair. Its poverty-stricken owners are faced with a number of choices. The house … Continue reading →

Scenes from Russian provincial life in 1899: “If only you knew how unhappy I am!” they cry. Only Chekhov, you feel, could have all his characters in tears and the audience watching them roaring with laughter. Ask any classical actor … Continue reading →

John Kander and Fred Ebb, the authors of Cabaret and Chicago, have taken their inspiration for their 1997 musical from the gruelling and degrading competitive dance marathons which jobless people, desperate for money, entered during the Great American Depression. Perhaps … Continue reading →

American author Jean Webster, who was strongly supportive of women’s suffrage, published her epistolary novel in 1912. An 18-year-old girl, brought up in an orphanage, is given a chance to go to a ladies’ college by an unknown rich benefactor … Continue reading →