Monthly Archives: December 2016

James Graham’s docudrama was first seen at the National Theatre in 2012. Jeremy Herrin’s fast-moving and exhilarating production is in excellent shape. I enjoyed it just as much second time round. The play will appeal to anybody who wants to … Continue reading →

Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play is a Gothic horror story of incest and murder, more surreal than real. Premiered in 1978, Shepard held up a mirror to rural America and found a nation divided, demoralised and disenfranchised. The American Dream … Continue reading →

Moss Hart and George S Kaufman’s Once In A Lifetime is a satire on Hollywood and the coming of sound and follows the fortunes and misfortunes of three small-time vaudeville artists who decide to jump on the Talkies bandwagon and … Continue reading →

James Bridie’s Dr Angelus is based on the 60-year-old murderer Dr Edward Pritchard, the last man to be publically hanged in Scotland. He had poisoned his mother-in-law and wife within a month of each other. Bridie updates the action to … Continue reading →

SHEPPEY, Somerset Maugham’s sardonic comedy, a modern morality play, rooted in the 1929 slump and the suffering of the poor, is successfully revived. Maugham knew when he was writing it that it wouldn’t be popular with West End audiences in … Continue reading →

There aren’t enough parts for women. The solution director Phyllida Lloyd and actress Harriet Walter have come up with is for women to play men’s roles and to justify the casting, Julius Caesar, Henry IV and The Tempest are set … Continue reading →

Mark Rylance goes from success to success: Jerusalem on stage, Wolf Hall on TV and Bridge of Spies and The BFG on film. At the Tony Awards he delivered a prose poem by Louis Jenkins instead of making an acceptance … Continue reading →

Stand-up comedian Stewart Lee takes a cerebral, middle-class approach. He is a comedian for grown-ups who enjoy irony. His main target is the audience whose IQ he constantly questions; and the more insulting he is, the more the audience likes … Continue reading →