Musicals
Di another day
This week, an excellent film (Moving On) and a film that isn’t at all, but is entirely worth it as…
Going for a song
A new musical history is being written for Britain, says Nicola Christie
Cold spell
Frozen the musical declares war on woke politics. The 2013 Disney movie has been turned into a song-and-dance show that…
West End pearl
The newly renovated Theatre Royal Drury Lane has seen it all and staged it all, says Robert Gore-Langton
It’s who you know
All the world’s on stage again so where to go to for insight into what to see and why? Podcasts,…
Too bawdy for the Beeb
Malcolm Arnold composed his opera The Dancing Master in 1952 for BBC television. It never appeared, the problem being the…
The imitation game
Copycat Hamiltons are everywhere. Lin-Manuel Miranda led the way by turning an unexamined corner of history into a smash-hit show.…
The unlikely lads
The Almeida is fighting back against lockdown with a sprawling family drama about two long-lost siblings. Adrian Lester plays Gilbert…
Cream of the crop
Theatres can open if they want to. That’s the current position. The only factor keeping a playhouse dark is a…
A conspiracy against art
Southwark Playhouse has revived an American show, The Last Five Years, whose run was cancelled in March. In advance, I…
Wet wet wet
It has roughly the same proportions as Shakespeare’s Globe. The Roman Theatre in Verulamium (St Albans) is an atmospheric ruin…
Soho moonwalk
Back to the West End at last. After a four- month lay-off, I grabbed the first available chance to catch…
The death of theatre
Auditoriums can now reopen — but they will resemble prison camps, says Lloyd Evans
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…
Pyramid of piffle
The Prince of Egypt is a musical adapted from a 1998 Dreamworks cartoon based on the Book of Exodus. So…
Upstairs downstairs
Falling In Love Again features two of the 20th century’s best-known sex athletes. Ron Elisha’s drama covers a long drunken……
An astonishing treat: Dear Evan Hansen at the Noël Coward Theatre reviewed
Dear Evan Hansen, by Steven Levenson, opens as a standard American teen-angst musical. Evan is a sweaty geek with a…
West Side Story’s flick-knife-to-the-guts thrill never landed its final blow
It was as though Damien Hirst had confessed a secret passion for Victorian watercolours, or Lars von Trier had admitted…
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…
Can an Offenbach production be too silly? Garsington’s Fantasio reviewed
The tears of a clown have often fallen on fertile operatic ground. Think of Rigoletto and I Pagliacci; or The…
Slow-moving tale with a strong echo of Brideshead: Alys, Always at the Bridge reviewed
Nicholas Hytner’s new show, Alys, Always, is based on a Harriet Lane novel that carries a strong echo of Brideshead.…
A winning hoax: When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other reviewed
The NT’s new play is an update of Pamela, a sexploitation novel by Samuel Richardson. It opens with Stephen Dillane…
One masterpiece, one dud and one interesting rediscovery: Pinter Five reviewed
One masterpiece, one dud, and one interesting rediscovery. That’s Pinter Five. Victoria Station is a hilarious sketch which might have…
The Old Vic’s Sylvia may be the new Les Mis
Sylvia, the Old Vic’s musical about the Pankhurst clan, has had a troubled nativity. Illness struck the cast during rehearsals.…
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…
