Donmar Warehouse
Irresistible: Clueless, at the Trafalgar Theatre, reviewed
Cher Horowitz, the central character in Clueless, is one of the most irritating heroines in the history of movies. She’s…
Minority Report is superficial pap – why on earth stage it?
Minority Report is a plodding bit of sci-fi based on a Steven Spielberg movie made more than two decades ago.…
Losing the plot
The title of the Donmar’s new effort, Marys Seacole, appears to be a misprint and that makes the reader look…
When things fall apart
Okay, I admit it. I have a girl crush on Juliet Stevenson. Ever since I first saw her in the…
Walnut whips and Stafford Cripps
The National Theatre’s programme of livestreamed shows continues with the Donmar’s 2014 production of Coriolanus starring Tom Hiddleston. The play…
Turns of the century
Not looking great, is it? Until we all get jabbed, theatres may have to stay closed. And even the optimists…
People expecting punishment won’t be disappointed: Almeida’s Duchess of Malfi reviewed
The Duchess of Malfi is one of those classics that everyone knows by name but not many have witnessed on…
A 90-minute slog up to a dazzling peak: ‘Master Harold’… and the boys reviewed
Athol Fugard likes to dump his characters in settings with no dramatic thrust or tension. A prison yard is a…
A decorative pageant that would appeal to civic grandees: The Secret River reviewed
The Secret River opens in a fertile corner of New South Wales in the early 1800s. William, a cockney pauper…
A cartoonish look at migration: Europe at the Donmar reviewed
Europe. Big word. Big theme. It was used by David Greig as the title of his 1994 play about frontiers…
One of the most astonishing things I’ve ever seen in the theatre: A German Life reviewed
It starts at a secretarial college. The stage is occupied by a dignified elderly lady who recalls her pleasure at…
A torpid seminar on why Trump is the Antichrist: Shipwreck reviewed
When reviewers call a work ‘important’ they mean ‘boring’ and ‘earnest’. And in those terms Shipwreck is one of the…
A masterpiece of pro-Trump propaganda: Sweat at the Donmar Warehouse reviewed
Sweat, set in the Pennsylvanian rust belt, looks at a blue-collar community threatened by a factory closure. The script uses…
Women should boycott David Hare’s slanderous new play: I’m Not Running reviewed
Sir David Hare’s weird new play sets out to chronicle the history of the Labour movement from 1996 to the…
Brian Friel’s Aristocrats should be called ‘Posh People Move House’
Non-stop chatterbox and mystifyingly revered fabricator of sub-Chekovian paddywhackery, Brian Friel has received another production at the Donmar. His play…
So bad I wanted to escape: An Octoroon reviewed
Intriguing word, ‘octoroon’. Does it mean an eight-sided almond-flavoured cakelet? No, it’s a person whose ancestry is one eighth black.…
Some fairly rich people rip off some very rich people. Who are we rooting for? Quiz reviewed
Quiz by James Graham looks at the failed attempt in 2001 to swindle a million quid from an ITV game…
The York Realist feels like it’s been written by a newcomer at a creative writing weekend
The Donmar’s new show, The York Realist, dates from 2001. The programme notes tell us that the playwright, Peter Gill,…
Why has the Bridge Theatre opened with this lightweight new play? Young Marx reviewed
Bang! A brand new theatre has opened on the South Bank managed by the two Nicks, Hytner and Starr, who…
Shaw thing
T.E. Lawrence is like the gap-year student from hell. He visits a country full of exotic barbarians and after a…
Close encounters
In October 2011 anti-capitalist vagrants built an open-air squat outside St Paul’s within shrieking distance of London’s financial heart. The…
Girls aloud
The age of ‘ladies first’ is back. Phyllida Lloyd reserves all the roles for the weaker sex, as I imagine…
