Monthly Archives: November 2017

London has a new commercial theatre and everybody in the theatrical profession and regular theatregoers will be wishing it well and wanting it to succeed. The Bridge Theatre, co-founded by Nicholas Hytner and Nick Star, who ran the National Theatre … Continue reading →

Birmingham Royal Ballet’s touring triple bill opens with Ruth Brill’s Arcadia. Brandon Lawrence is physically impressive as Pan, half-man, half-goat, and the music by saxophonist John Harle is particularly appealing. Le Baiser de La Fée was conceived by Igor Stravinsky … Continue reading →

Patrick Hamilton’s novel, adapted by Nicolas Wright and skilfully directed by Jonathan Kent, is well cast and very watchable. A lonely and vulnerable 39-year-old (Fenella Woolgar), living in a genteel boarding house, has an affair with a charming and charismatic … Continue reading →

What makes Lucy Bailey’s production of Agatha Christie’s Old Bailey courtroom drama special is its staging in the council chamber at London County Hall. The venue makes the drama a much more interesting experience than it would have been seeing … Continue reading →

Bertolt Brecht’s manifesto on warmongering and capitalism, set during the Thirty Years War, can be pretty boring and Hannah Chissick’s awkward production, set on a narrow traverse stage and with a titchy cart, doesn’t begin to do justice to this … Continue reading →

It’s diabolical.

Dominic Dromgoole’s first season at Vaudeville Theatre is devoted entirely to the plays of Oscar Wilde and opens with A Woman of No Importance, a satire on Victorian society and its lax morality, its hypocrisy and its double standards of … Continue reading →

David Eldridge’s Beginning is a neat and intimate two-hander about acute loneliness and the difficulty of finding a partner late in life. 100 minutes long and acted straight through without interval, it’s tender and heartfelt, funny and not funny. Two … Continue reading →