Monthly Archives: May 2015

Philip Barry, one of the most popular American dramatists in the 1920’s and 1930’s, is best remembered today for The Philadelphia Story which he wrote for Katherine Hepburn and which ran for 417 performances in 1939. Hepburn starred in the … Continue reading →

James Phillips’ play is described as a journey into the visionary imagination and dark dream world of Alexander McQueen. Though there is a remarkable performance by Stephen Wight as the enfant terrible, who committed suicide in 2010 at the age … Continue reading →

Easily the most enjoyable moment in a poor revival of Shakespeare’s comedy comes when the song, “It Was Lover and His Lass,” is turned into a jolly music hall number and given the full, silly, show-stopping “hey ding a ding … Continue reading →

The most celebrated medieval morality play hasn’t had a major production in the UK since the William Poel and Ben Greet productions at the turn of the 20th century. I should have liked to have seen the play the anonymous … Continue reading →

Noel Coward’s comedy of bad manners, dashed off in three days, is set in the country home of a family of four insufferable Bohemians who, unbeknownst to each other, have invited a guest for the weekend. The comedy rests entirely … Continue reading →

It has been estimated that there are 856,700 people with dementia in the UK. Many theatregoers will find Florian Zeller’s play too close for comfort. The French playwright (who won the Molière Award for Best Play in 2014) views Alzheimer’s … Continue reading →

The Christians behave extremely badly. But then Jew-baiting was the norm in Shakespeare’s day. Charles Macklin in 1741 was the first actor to take Shylock seriously. Edmund Kean in 1814 was the first to treat him with compassion. Henry Irving … Continue reading →

The first actor to play Queen Elizabeth II on stage was Prunella Scales in Alan Bennett’s A Question of Attribution at the National Theatre in 1988 and she was brilliant. Then came Helen Mirren, first in Peter Morgan’s film, The … Continue reading →