Monthly Archives: December 2013

The National Theatre’s Christmas family show this year is Carl Miller’s adaptation of Erich Kastner’s children’s classic, first published in 1929 when unemployment was high and times were hard in Germany. A poor country boy is robbed of all his … Continue reading →

German expressionism is familiar to British audiences from the films of Fritz Lang, F W Murnau and G W Pabst in the 1920’s; but the chance to see an actual German expressionistic play of that period is rare. Georg Kaiser’s … Continue reading →

Howard Brenton’s latest and attention-grabbing play, directed by Howard Davies with his usual efficiency, is about the partitioning of India in 1947. Prime Minister Clement Atlee dispatches Judge Cyril Radcliffe to divide the sub-continent into two new sovereign dominions. He … Continue reading →

Once more into the breach. Shakespeare’s history play works best if you choose the right moment to revive it. Played as a patriotic jingoistic piece Henry V has always been extremely popular in wartime and was regularly revived during the … Continue reading →

Leonard Bernstein worked on his musical version of Voltaire’s picaresque satire on Church, State and Philosophy for over twenty-two years, and, in the best of all possible worlds, he should have got it finally right; but he never did. The … Continue reading →

John Ajvide Lindqvist’s romantic horror novel has already been made into two films, one in his native Sweden, the other in Hollywood. Now it has been turned into a play by Jack Thorne for The National Theatre of Scotland and … Continue reading →

Mary O’Malley said she wrote Once A Catholic in order to write Catholicism right out of her system only to find she then had a void to be filled and that there was no magic in atheism. Her play is … Continue reading →

The White Carnation was specifically written for Ralph Richardson by R C Sherriff, author of Journey’s End, still the best known British play about World War 1. A ghost role would have appealed to Richardson. The play didn’t do that … Continue reading →