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Jack Thorne is a little frustrated. At only 34, as the award-winning writer of edgy teen drama Skins, co-writer with Shane Meadows of This Is England ’86 and creator of the criminally short-lived dark fantasy series The Fades, he has accomplished an impressive amount. But when it comes to writing for the stage, he’s chafing at what he sees as his limitations. […]
November 30, 2012
“What have you been reading?” Award-winning American playwright Julia Jordan laughs. We’re discussing her latest project, new rock musical Murder Ballad – for which she wrote the book and lyrics, with music from indie singer-songwriter Juliana Nash – and I’ve observed that violence seem to be a preoccupation of her work. From the grief-tinged tales of Walk Two […]
November 29, 2012
One on side of the Lion and Unicorn’s black-box theatre space, a group of actors rehearsing Titania’s first meeting with Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream are enthusiastically trying out different braying laughs for the unfortunate Mechanical-cum-ass. Performing around them, the love-struck Lysander, Demetrius, Helena and Hermia cling to each other in ever-more comic ways. The atmosphere […]
November 13, 2012
The trust between psychoanalyst Dr Beckmann and his client Jenny is shattered when he finds her breaking into his office in the middle of the night. What she discovers will change their lives forever, and begin a descent into memory, murder and madness from which there is no going back. Roger Mortimer-Smith’s Trauma is a surreal psychological […]
November 11, 2012
Indian girl Loretta arrives in Victorian England to look after two children. She wants to earn enough money to pay for a ticket home, but fate intervenes. A century later, Loretta’s great-great-grandson Kalil leaves his East African home to start a new life in the UK. But like his ancestor, he discovers that our destiny […]
November 7, 2012
To modern ears, there’s something creepy about a story in which a benefactor adopts a pseudonym to influence the life of a girl he becomes infatuated with, and who takes to calling him ‘Daddy’ in her letters. But this new musical – directed and adapted by John Caird from the popular 1912 children’s novel by […]
November 5, 2012
While Oscar Wilde is best known for his works for adults, novels like The Picture of Dorian Gray and plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest, he also wrote numerous children’s stories during his lifetime. These fairytales, which he first composed for his two sons, have been staple bedtime reading for generations of families. […]
October 29, 2012
Just off New York’s Times Square, with Hurricane Sandy permitting, an intriguing new festival is entering its second and final week. It’s only minutes from Broadway, but conceptually Bad Theater Fest is a million miles away from the multimillion-dollar glow of its slick neighbours. Don’t be put off by the name. Here, ‘bad’ isn’t a byword for wilfully […]
October 22, 2012
The farcical antics of incompetent hotel owner Basil, his perpetually exasperated wife Sybil and eternally bewildered Spanish waiter Manuel have enshrined 1970s BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers as a comedy classic. Inspired by the TV show, Faulty Towers The Dining Experience is taking up an open-ended residency in London’s West End. From 26 October, intrepid diners will be able to […]
October 18, 2012
Mike Elliston’s new play, TRAILER/Trash, is the latest step in a long and varied career. Since winning a Fringe First at the 1983 Edinburgh Festival for his short play Bread ‘n’ Butter Guns, he has written for numerous TV productions (including a brief stint on infamous soap opera Crossroads) and been a freelance and regular script reader for […]
December 4, 2012
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