Posted by Matt on 11 July, 2010 · Leave a Comment
The first and final scenes of this open-air Comedy of Errors feel dashed off, as if director Philip Franks couldn’t be bothered to do much with them. This isn’t as big a problem as it might be in a different play: The Comedy of Errors is mostly middle.
Filed under Reviews · Tagged with abi johnson, british theatre guide, broadway world, charles spencer, evening standard, henry hitchings, howard loxton, ian foster, islington tribune, john thaxter, kate kellaway, londonist, maxwell cooter, michael billington, michael coveney, music omh, philip franks, quentin letts, regent's park open air, sam smith, shakespeare, the guardian, the independent, the mail, the observer, the stage, the telegraph, there ought to be clowns, what's on stage, zoe j griffiths
Posted by Matt on 14 May, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Will Adamsdale is 36, and didn’t send his first email until the year 2005. The Human Computer is both a confession and a defence of his IT incompetence.
Posted by Matt on 9 May, 2010 · Leave a Comment
A cuddly, rose-tinted portrait of a time when heroes needed no more motivation than a spirit of adventure and a sense of patriotic duty.
Posted by Matt on 24 March, 2010 · Leave a Comment
4.48 Psychosis is a gift for a director. Kane’s text – her last – is more prose poem than script, lacking stage directions or delineated characters: a nearly blank slate onto which a director can impose context, character and narrative.
Filed under Reviews · Tagged with a younger theatre, aleks sierz, barbican, benedict nightingale, british theatre guide, dominic cavendish, grzegorz jarzyna, jake orr, lyn gardner, music omh, neil downden, sarah kane, the collective review, the guardian, the telegraph, the times, theartsdesk
Posted by Matt on 6 March, 2010 · Leave a Comment
The Poof Downstairs hinges on a metatheatrical conceit and cannot be effectively reviewed unless said conceit is revealed – regrettably deadening future audiences’ feelings of whimsical bafflement, but that’s theatre criticism for you.
Posted by Matt on 6 March, 2010 · Leave a Comment
A charitable movie reviewer might describe Return as “beautifully shot”. It’s one of those low-budget British films so beloved of awards committees, in which nothing very much happens but every frame is painstakingly composed, every close-up and gradual fade-through-black marinaded in a rich sense of atmosphere and place.
Posted by Matt on 3 February, 2010 · Leave a Comment
An original member of La Clique, Martinez exists in the borderlands between stand-up comedy, burlesque dance, stage magic and performance art. Similarly, My Stories, Your Emails is a lecture, a stand-up act, a play, a confession and an autobiography while simultaneously being none of these things.
Filed under Reviews · Tagged with barbican, british theatre guide, charles spencer, culture wars, dominic maxwell, evening standard, financial times, henry hitchings, ian shuttleworth, lyn gardner, mark whitelaw, matt trueman, music omh, rhoda koenig, sam smith, the guardian, the independent, the telegraph, ursula martinez
Posted by Matt on 1 February, 2010 · Leave a Comment
There’s nothing wrong with a partially recycled plot, especially when it’s embedded in a refreshing new context, or accessorised with interesting peripheral events. But in Plan D the context is deliberately obscured, with only Designer Paul Burgess’s generically Middle Eastern costumes to hint at the Palestinian setting.
Posted by Matt on 14 December, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Two one-act plays back to back don’t usually make a successful two-act play. Right? Which suggests it’s probably no coincidence that Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About A Girl He Once Loved and Stefan Golaszewski Is A Widower work so well as a double bill; it seems likely they were always meant to be performed together.
Filed under Reviews · Tagged with british theatre guide, bush, charles spencer, culture wars, dominic maxwell, jane edwardes, london theatre blog, lyn gardner, matt trueman, music omh, natasha tripney, paul taylor, philip fisher, phillip breen, stefan golaszewski, the collective review, the guardian, the independent, the telegraph, the times, time out
Posted by Matt on 24 September, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Like a glass-panelled clock, Deborah Warner’s Mother Courage and Her Children doesn’t just choose not to conceal its inner workings, it displays them, inviting the audience to marvel at the way the pieces fit together.
Filed under Reviews · Tagged with benedict nightingale, bertolt brecht, charles spencer, deborah warner, evening standard, fiona mountford, heather neill, london theatre blog, michael billington, michael coveney, music omh, national, stephen crowe, the guardian, the stage, the telegraph, the times, tony kushner, what's on stage
