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There’s an intense physical vulnerability to Thandie Newton as an actress. Fine-boned and slender, just her presence draws your attention to how awkward, unyielding and harsh a place the world can be. This effect is something that director Jeremy Herrin successfully harnesses in his production of Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden, a bleak meditation on […]
October 26, 2011
It was on Kenneth Tynan’s list of plays he believed should be produced by the National. It scandalised audiences when it debuted in 1951 and was subsequently banned in Germany. Now, in the centenary year of Max Frisch’s birth, Cerberus Theatre Company presents the UK premiere of COUNT OEDERLAND at The White Bear from 1 […]
October 25, 2011
It’s the final night of the school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The run has gone well – competently – but it has a different quality this evening. Perhaps it’s because of the particularly receptive audience, or the storm rumbling overhead; but whatever the reason, the play feels excitingly unpredictable to the actors. Not […]
October 20, 2011
For many writers, the stage is where they put the inadmissible in their lives; twisting it, obscuring it, trying to make sense of it. Here, John Osborne closes the fractured family photo album of Look Back in Anger to present us with something that is less explicitly autobiographical but no less personal or powerful. Bill Maitland, a […]
October 16, 2011
Watching Canadian playwright Jason Hall’s new play, inspired by his purchase of a flat, is like being told a story by a friend who thinks it’s absolutely hilarious. The problem is that it isn’t as funny as it could be and the punch-line, when it comes, isn’t justified by the set-up. Number 11 (Craig Gazey) […]
October 15, 2011
Since its debut at the Royal Court in 1965, Edward Bond’s Saved has become as notorious for its impact on British theatre as for its bleak depiction of a society in freefall. The Lord Chamberlain’s decision to ban it because of a scene in which a baby is stoned to death led to stage censorship […]
October 26, 2011
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