Month: February 2023

Wodehouse in Wonderland is at first attempt a tricky play to describe; part memoir and part monologue, it features a sprinkling of cabaret and a deceptively meandering plot. The setting, however, firmly establishes the action in P G Wodehouse’s study and for two acts the audience glimpse into life of a man with “nothing to… Continue reading Wodehouse in Wonderland

A pedestrian and predictable reach-for-the-stars story wrapped in sequins, rictus smiles and plenty of vests, Strictly Ballroom: The Musical is clearly popular with nigh-on full houses. Strictly Come Dancing judge and sometimes musical madam Craig Revel Horwood directs the flamboyant and necessarily camp stage version of Baz Luhrmann’s 1992 film while his and Jason Gilkison’s… Continue reading Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom: The Musical

Marc-Emmanuel Soriano’s play One Who Wants to Cross (Un Qui Veut Traverser), first performed in France, is essentially a lyrical monologue with the occasional briefest contribution from a second character. There is a mood of melancholy, and many of the things said in the piece can feel like a form of mourning for the plight… Continue reading One Who Wants to Cross

With its multiple murders and mutilation performed on stage, Shakespeare’s early play seems tp have been a box-office hit with its bloodthirsty first audiences but poses a challenge to a modern director. Its last Globe outing, Lucy Bailey’s gory 2006 production (revived in 2014), saw faintings and walkouts. This time, Jude Christian makes the blood-letting… Continue reading Titus Andronicus

Linbury Prize-winning Sami Fendall’s black sandpit set is an excellent locale for this transposition of Strindberg’s misogynistic Miss Julie to a 2012 New York City, BDSM party. What at first looks like a weird playground for Julie and John’s tense flirting becomes a sinister wrestling ring in which they throw each other against the ropes, bouncing back… Continue reading Smoke

Prospero’s isle is famously full of noises. In Elizabeth Freestone’s production for our times, it is also full of detritus, as if all the jetsam and plastic waste of the oceans had been washed up on the godforsaken ecological disaster that was once an island paradise. Prospero is played, perfectly justifiably, by a woman, and… Continue reading The Tempest

DNA by prolific writer Dennis Kelly was born out of a National Theatre initiative to develop plays for young people specifically between 14 and 18 years old. It has since become a set GCSE text and been studied by up to 40,000 students. Debuted in 2008, it has its roots in the classic novel Lord… Continue reading DNA

George Abbott was remarkable in many ways. He was an uncommon kind of theatrical quadruple threat, succeeding on Broadway as actor, director, writer, producer. This might sound stressful, but Abbott clearly thrived on the stress and hard work that this entails, since he lived to the age of 107 and continued working decades beyond any… Continue reading The Abbott Touch

Rosemary’s Baby meets David Lynch in a subterranean tale of a sinking ship where sinister collides with slapstick in a seriously freakish, cinematic mind and body bending show from Belgian physical theatre company Peeping Tom. Triptych is intensely surreal. Broken into three acts, The missing door, The lost room and The hidden floor, action opens onto a frenzied man mopping up… Continue reading Triptych: The missing door, The lost room and The hidden floor