Transatlantic theatrical traffic is busier than ever, and now here at the Hampstead is not just Stephen Karam’s Tony-winning play, first seen in 2015, but director Joe Mantello and his full Broadway cast. It seems fitting that they should travel together, since Karam’s work … Continue reading
Polly Stenham’s updating of Strindberg’s Miss Julie moves the action to contemporary London, and finds both contempt and sympathy for this new version of the idle rich. But, shorn of its 19th-century context, the play struggles to make the class transgression feel … Continue reading
Leading dancers and choreographers Kate Prince, Kloé Dean and Emma Houston discusses women in hip hop. Read my full Dancing Times article here
Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr’s enterprise is certainly an historic one: The Bridge is London’s first new wholly commercial theatre in 80 years. If its opening play isn’t the same landmark work, it’s nevertheless an auspicious start to a promising … Continue reading
Never mind Stepping Out – the real wonder of this production is Anna-Jane Casey stepping in for the injured Tamzin Outhwaite at such short notice. It’s a plot twist worthy of the backstage shenanigans in Richard Harris’s genial 1984 play … Continue reading
I joined Mark Forrest on his BBC radio show to talk La La Land and the tap revival. Click here to listen to the interview (I’m on at about 2hr 42min)
Sequel-itis has spread to the stage. There’s no caped crusader, but the troubled quartet of Neil LaBute’s latest will be familiar to anyone who caught Reasons to be Pretty at the Almeida in 2011 – as will Soutra Gilmour’s industrial crate … Continue reading
In 1933, French society was rocked by Christine and Léa Papin’s brutal murder of their employer. The incident loosely inspired Jean Genet’s 1947 play, which uses that power struggle to starkly challenge identity constructs. Jamie Lloyd’s suitably unflinching revival benefits … Continue reading
“Murder is hilarious,” quips Zawe Ashton’s scheming maid, and in Jamie Lloyd’s high-octane, queasily comic revival of Jean Genet’s radical 1947 play, it really is. It’s also lurid, strange, bleak and powerfully transcendent, as befits a piece that locates hunger … Continue reading
