The most thrilling revivals reinvigorate a classic work, while revealing its fundamental soul anew. Marianne Elliott’s female-led, 21st-century take on George Furth and Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical company Company makes a bold, inventive statement, but somehow also suggests this is how the … Continue reading
French playwright Florian Zeller returns, with another compelling puzzle box of a play – the only thing definite about it being the trademark definite article in the title. But anchoring the human side of this elliptical work is a pair of commanding … Continue reading
Jamie Lloyd is marking the 10th anniversary of Harold Pinter’s death in remarkable style with his Pinter at the Pinter season, staging all the great man’s 20 short plays, plus some sketches and poetry – grouped into seven productions – at the … Continue reading
The first thing we see is Anna Fleischle’s Fifties-tastic giant doll’s-house set: each period-perfect room bathed in a different twinkling hue, flowers painted onto the brick wall, and jaunty music setting the tone. But Katherine Parkinson’s Judy is able to open the … Continue reading
“It just seems to be a thing that we do, this incomprehensible violence thing.” So says the narrator of Dennis Kelly’s new one-woman play, performed in a staggering tour-de-force from Carey Mulligan. She’s been reflecting on an American mass shooting … Continue reading
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
Dominic Dromgoole’s new company Classic Spring kicks off its year-long celebration of Oscar Wilde with lesser-known 1893 work A Woman of No Importance. A starry cast, led by the incandescent Eve Best, makes a strong case for the play, though Dromgoole’s reclaiming of Wilde … Continue reading
A year after premiering acclaimed French playwright Florian Zeller’s The Truth, London’s Menier Chocolate Factory now hosts The Lie – which, as the name suggests, acts as a companion piece of sorts. Once again, we’re in a slippery Pinteresque realm, the seemingly conventional domestic set-up teasingly deconstructed … Continue reading
