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Published: 17 April 2008
Grease is to slide into the Piccadilly theatre this summer, opening on 8 August after previews from 25 July. The musical, which follows the highs and lows of a group… Read More
Desperate poverty, freezing cold dark nights, starving Russian peasants and a man threatening to commit suicide. Not the ingredients you would normally expect to find in a comedy, but Dying… Read More
A perennial Shakespeare favourite, played out in a college garden on a just-bearable English summer evening, with the audience sipping Pimms and the cast cavorting in the bushes with flowers… Read More
It is genuinely surprising when a piece of theatre written 50 years ago, and at the cutting edge of drama when it was first produced, should, in an anniversary production,… Read More
The vast Lyttelton stage is transformed into a television studio of sorts for Katie Mitchell's new production of Martin Crimp's Attempts On Her Life. Confusing at first, the necessity of… Read More
Melody On The Move encompasses a trio of very distinct works by choreographers Christopher Hampson, David Dawson and Michael Corder, performed at Sadler’s Wells by the English National Ballet in… Read More
A leadership challenge, dirty tricks, sleaze and scandal – all in a day’s work if you are a party whip. The party is in crisis and the Prime Minister is… Read More
Patrick Stewart is one of those performers that you cannot wait to see playing Shakespeare's 'big' roles. This season he has already given London his aging, regressing Mark Antony, now… Read More
The media hype has been in overdrive in recent weeks and last night the stars, the cameras and the autograph hunters were out in force at the Gielgud to witness… Read More
He began as a playwright, but Christopher Hampton’s long career has encompassed this and much more. Now in his 60s, with new productions of two of his plays currently running,… Read More
From the moment he donned a sailor suit to help out at his parents’ amateur dramatics society, Nigel Harman wanted to be a musical theatre star. So what’s he doing… Read More
Under The Whaleback, Richard Bean’s new play about the swarthy lives of the Deckies aboard the trawlers fishing the North Sea, opened at The Royal Court‘s Jerwood Theatre Upstairs this… Read More
Best known for his impressions of celebrities and sports stars, Alistair McGowan is once again working with puppets for the first time since his early days on Spitting Image. He… Read More
Director Carl Heap is no stranger to adapting plays for young audiences. A former secondary school teacher, Heap, with company beggarsbelief, has devised and directed several family-friendly productions including the… Read More
A globetrotting director comes home this month as Tim Supple brings his ‘Indian Dream’ to the Roundhouse for a short season. A unique spectacle staged in a unique venue away… Read More
Ray Fearon is tired. He has been rehearsing all morning and his mind has been left in the rehearsal room, where it is passing the time pondering the subtleties of… Read More
James Mossman was a star reporter for the BBC in the 1960s, an overseas correspondent known for his reliability in turning out a 12-minute piece to camera. In 1971, he… Read More
Bare trees stand like sentries and snow falls relentlessly outside the Borkmans’ house. Peter McKintosh’s set conjures the cold, stark atmosphere of Norway in winter, while inside the house, the… Read More
Two soldiers return from war with no money and no way of making a living outside the armed forces. Adjusting to society rather than war proves a problem. It sounds… Read More
Maths is not funny. There is nothing humorous about a simultaneous equation or a cumulative frequency diagram. Long division does not make you smile. Yet David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning Proof… Read More
He is normally an Englishman in New York, but Ben Chaplin is more than happy to be back in the UK on stage at the National Theatre. While rehearsing for… Read More
One of the most respected stage actors of his generation, Sir Antony Sher is a man of many talents. In addition to acting he is also a gifted artist and… Read More
Like a swallow flying south for the winter, but at the wrong time of year and less feathery, the RSC’s productions of Coriolanus and The Merry Wives of Windsor have… Read More
The Comedy theatre is obviously the place for farcical comedies involving women hiding in bedrooms and inept Welshmen. Following the jolly slapstick of Donkeys’ Years, a new production of 60s… Read More
From White House Director of Communications to Dutch librarian: Richard Schiff made the shift in the West End last night as he opened in Glen Berger's one-man play Underneath The… Read More
It is a cold winter's day, the wind is whistling through the trees and the light is fading. It is not the time to be meeting either a hit man… Read More
On Monday, Richard Schiff faces the press as he makes his West End debut in Underneath The Lintel, a spiritual play in which the actor plays a small-town librarian on… Read More
Pinter is again the playwright of choice in the West End. At the Haymarket, a selection of comedians is presenting a collection of lesser known sketches in Pinter's People, and… Read More
It is often said of Beckett's most famous play, Waiting For Godot, that nothing happens, twice. The same accusation could well be aimed at Happy Days. The protagonist is buried… Read More
Edward Hall's all-male Propeller company opens the Old Vic's 2007 season with a double-bill of Shakespeare's explorations into love. While the matinee saw The Taming Of The Shrew, which was… Read More
The Old Vic had a marathon press event yesterday as all-male theatre company Propeller gave its two Shakespeare productions their London premieres. In the first, Edward Hall and his players… Read More
He enjoys dressing as Elvis, he can sing as Johnny Cash and Tina Turner and he hears voices in his head, including that of Kermit the Frog. Greg London is… Read More
Shakespeare's most lauded love story is undoubtedly the tale of Romeo And Juliet, yet the affair between Antony And Cleopatra sent ripples through the ancient world. The current RSC production,… Read More
The tiny space of Trafalgar Studio 2 has hosted many productions since it opened – from Rod Beacham’s Lies Have Been Told to Nina Raine’s Rabbit – which all make… Read More
Matthew Amer is in no way a ballet aficionado. He could not tell you the difference between first and fourth position, a plié or a pirouette. But English National Ballet's… Read More
One of three productions to transfer to the Novello from the RSC's Complete Works Festival in Stratford, recent Evening Standard Award winner Marianne Elliott's production of Much Ado About Nothing… Read More
If you're looking for something a little – no, a lot, actually – more saucy and racy than your average Christmas theatre fare, you certainly can't go wrong with Don… Read More
As a cynical adult, you forget how enthusiastic kids can be about pantomime: booing and hissing at the baddie, shouting ‘he’s behind you’, pointing so vigorously at the bogieman standing… Read More
Don’t go to Love Song expecting to hear Lady In Red or My Heart Will Go On. From the moment each letter of the title is emblazoned onto a white… Read More
The Old Vic’s spring of Shakespeare continues, as English Touring Theatre’s production of King Lear follows on from The Tempest. Cordelia, Lear’s favourite daughter and saving grace is played by… Read More
Emma Williams has a good tip for dying your hair: rub cigarette ash and water on your hairline and it removes the dark stains. This, the naturally fair actress usefully… Read More
Talented, award-nominated director Edward Hall is the second generation in one of British theatre's powerhouse families. His father has shaped some of the UK's most influential theatrical institutions. Which is… Read More
Harriet Walter's CV is the War And Peace of résumés; you need to sit down with a cup of tea before reading the extensive tome. Not only is it packed,… Read More
At 64, The Rocky Horror Show creator, actor, performer and presenter Richard O'Brien knows what he likes and what he doesn't like, and he's not afraid of saying so. Among… Read More
It takes someone special to have spent nearly half a decade on a national soap opera and successfully worked the lads' mag circuit, and also had an award-nominated classical album… Read More
Sci-fi fans may know him as the werewolf Lucian in the Underworld films, others recognise him as the ex-boyfriend of Underworld co-star Kate Beckinsale, with whom he has a daughter;… Read More
It was one of the highlights of the RSC’s Complete Works season in Stratford, now Marianne Elliott’s colourful Cuban production of Much Ado About Nothing comes to the Novello this… Read More
As productions of Jack And The Beanstalk bring smiles to the faces of impressionable children across the country, it is an overgrown plant of a different size lightening the mood… Read More
It’s all over the telly, people are signing up for lessons in spades, some even do it on ice; dancing hasn’t been this in vogue since the hey day of… Read More
To anyone over 30, Wayne Sleep is the British dancer of the recent times. Almost anyone else will know him as the skinny one who wore the waffle-hat on I’m… Read More
With the outrage over Salman Rushdie and The Satanic Verses, the Danish cartoons of Mohammed and Jerry Springer: The Opera, freedom of speech has been the focus of several high-profile… Read More
If the thought of Watership Down conjures images of cute fluffy bunnies running around a peaceful, sunlit hilltop, think again. Rona Munro's adaptation of Richard Adams's novel is an all-action… Read More
The 'special relationship' between the US and the UK has been a long and at times volatile one, with both sides sharing political, cultural and diplomatic views. This relationship has… Read More
Love And Money is a modern play. It reeks of modernity. Everything about it speaks of the here and now, from Anna Fleischle's minimalist set, where everything is tucked away… Read More
David Hare’s play about a mother-daughter relationship first premiered at the National in 1997 with Judi Dench and Samantha Bond. Nearly 10 years later Amy's View has been revived at… Read More
The hills were definitely alive last night – in fact they were tilting and moving too – as The Sound Of Music opened at the London Palladium. In a year… Read More
Charlotte Emmerson's last West End outing saw her writhing around on the floor with her co-star and murdering her husband in The Postman Always Rings Twice. It's something she's making… Read More
Putting together a multimedia theatrical version of an experimental novel by Virginia Woolf was never going to be an easy task, but director Katie Mitchell decided to take on the… Read More
How do you turn a four-hour opera packed with songs that have become jazz standards over the years into a new £3 million, two-and-a-half-hour musical? The answer, which involves bringing… Read More
At 33, Neve Campbell is a well established film actress. Her big movie break, the 1996 hit Scream, redefined the teen slasher genre with its mixture of gore, scares and… Read More
Claire Bloom has been getting down the gym in preparation for her latest role, as the sprightly Lily, a widow who has retired to Florida and fancies learning to dance,… Read More
The show must go on. Anna Maxwell Martin must have drummed this into her head a thousand times in the days leading up to the press night of Cabaret at… Read More
With a cast of 40, a 20-piece orchestra and £3 million spent on the production, Sir Trevor Nunn's adaptation of the Gershwins' folk musical Porgy And Bess is one of… Read More
After braving the cold of an autumnal London evening, it was a warming surprise to enter the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs for the press night performance of Meredith Oakes's… Read More
English National Opera’s second new production of its autumn season at the London Coliseum is Mozart’s popular comic opera The Marriage Of Figaro, which comes complete with an exciting young… Read More
Does taking an old, much-respected work of art and creating something new with it constitute vandalism and detract from the original work, or is it a reinvigoration of the art,… Read More
After a long preview period and a considerable amount of hype, the stars were out last night at the Aldwych for the opening night of the stage show of Dirty… Read More
When Caroline, Or Change opened on Broadway in 2003, it received six Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book, Best Director and Best Actress. The production opened… Read More
Adrian Noble’s production of Tennessee Williams’s lesser known play, Summer And Smoke, comes to the West End following a short run in Nottingham. English actress Rosamund Pike plays the uptight… Read More
Before the Hollywood starlets got their hands on the vampy dresses and heavy eye-make up, Ruthie Henshall, playing her initial-sake Roxie Hart, was the star who launched Chicago as an… Read More
Before the show even starts you know you are in for an evening of Pythonic silliness when you are told to let your mobile phone ring “willy-nilly” throughout the performance.… Read More
Artistic Director David Lan introduced the first production in the newly refurbished Young Vic last night. Tobias And The Angel, which was also the first show in the Young Vic’s… Read More
At The Ho-Ho Club, the punters may be laughing, but backstage the jokes are flying through the air like poison-tipped arrows as the group of stand-up comedians employed by compère… Read More
A group of young people emerged from the Shaftesbury on Saturday feeling infinitesimally cooler than when they went in, all thanks to Kids West End and the Mayor of London’s… Read More
Mark Ravenhill and other members of the creative team and cast revealed what was in store for audiences of Dick Whittington And His Cat at the Barbican (29 November 2006–20… Read More