Monthly Archives: June 2017

Georg Büchner wrote Woyzeck in 1837, the year he died, aged 23. There is no definitive text, just fragments of paper. Not performed until 1913, it is widely regarded as the first modern play and forerunner of the social dramas … Continue reading →

Amanda Hart is making her West end debut as the gin-sodden matron of the orphanage in the Broadway musical Annie, which presumably would not be being revived in the West End if she were not in it. Her fans may … Continue reading →

Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein’s On the Town, the story of three sailors let loose in New York on a 24-hour shore leave, was a ballet and a Broadway musical long before it became a much-loved film. Dance-led, it needs … Continue reading →

Frederico Fellini’s La Strada made him internationally famous. Filmed in bleak and impoverished post-war Italy, it is remembered for its neo-realism, the performances by Anthony Quinn, Giuletta Masina and Richard Basehart and a haunting score by Nino Rota. Sally Cookson’s … Continue reading →

Dion Boucicault’s famous anti-slavery melodrama premiered in 1859, well before the American Civil War. I have longed to see it and wished the Orange Tree had staged Boucicault rather than an adaptation by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.

Edward Fox recites poems and light verse and tells anecdotes and jokes in his one-man touring show, an affectionate celebration of John Betjeman.

Tony Kushner’s award-winning epic describes the impact of AIDS on the gay community in San Francisco in the 1970s, during the inaction of the Reagan administration. It is divided into two parts: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. Kushner, writing in anger … Continue reading →

Director Joe Wright has found an interesting way to stage Bertolt Brecht’s didactic epic on Galileo whose findings so undermined the authority of the Catholic Church he was summoned to appear before the Inquisition. Under threat of torture, he recanted. … Continue reading →