Category: History
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Borders (*****) and Games (****) at the Arcola Theatre review
Borders and Games Arcola Theatre, 22nd December 2018 I had only seen one of Henry Naylor’s acclaimed plays prior to this double header and that was Angel at this very venue. That was enough to know that I like the cut of his jib. Mr Naylor, prior to writing plays,…
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Antony and Cleopatra at the National Theatre review ****
Antony and Cleopatra National Theatre Olivier, 11th December 2018 Simon Godwin is a director who has shown he has a bit of a way with the sprawling masterpieces in the dramatic canon in recent years. Especially from the Bard. His recently opened Timon of Athens at the RSC, albeit with…
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Tamburlaine at the RSC Swan Theatre review ****
Tamburlaine Swan Theatre, RSC Stratford, 17th November 2018 If you scroll down you will see a so-called review of the play Switzerland. Though focussed on the author Patricia Highsmith it referenced her most famous character Tom Ripley. One of the most beguiling bad boys in fictional history. However he was…
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The Madness of George III at the Nottingham Playhouse review *****
The Madness of George III Nottingham Playhouse, 13th November 2018 Flushed with success from his visit to Manchester the Tourist hopped on a train across the Peak District to the proud city of Sheffield, (where I see the Theatres will be staging a Rutherford and Sons next year ahead of…
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Forgotten at the Arcola Theatre review ****
Forgotten Arcola Theatre, 10th November 2018 I was much taken, if not entirely convinced, by the British East Asian Yellow Earth Theatre company’s version of Tamburlaine at the Arcola 18 months ago. And this co-production, with Moongate, of a new play, Forgotten, by Daniel York Loh, which kicked off at…
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Don Carlos at the Rose Kingston review ****
Don Carlos Rose Theatre Kingston, 9th November 2018 No one could accuse Friedrich Schiller of holding back in Don Carlos. Goethe inspired Sturm und Drang Romanticism, a Kantian paean to the centrality of personal freedom and democracy, the clash of liberty and tyranny, a stab at the sublime, a (loose)…
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Peterloo film review ****
Peterloo, 2nd November 2018 I doubt that there has ever been a more carefully researched, painstakingly assembled or more vividly imagined “history” film than Peterloo. If you like Mike Leigh (I do) you are going to love this. If you like British social, economic and political history (I do) you…
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Hogarth’s Progress at the Rose Kingston review ***
Hogarth’s Progress: The Art of Success and The Taste of the Town Rose Theatre Kingston, 21st October 2018 South West London was a popular place for the cultural, liberal, metropolitan elite in the first half of the C18. It still is. Hogarth, Horace Walpole, David Garrick, Henry Fielding, Alexander Pope,…
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The Sweet Science of Bruising at the Southwark Playhouse review ****
The Sweet Science of Bruising Southwark Playhouse, 16th October 2018 Now that MS, BD and LD have turned into exemplars of their youthful generation, (I am their Dad so may be biased), we no longer watch Doctor Who. However with Malorie Blackman, Ed Hime, Pete McTighe and Vinay Patel (An Adventure…
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An Adventure at the Bush Theatre review ****
An Adventure Bush Theatre, 26th September 2018 Now I cannot pretend that, when the lovely people at the Bush moved the matinee performance of An Adventure that I attended forward by an hour, and indicated it had metamorphosed into a three hour plus extravaganza, I wasn’t concerned. And reading the…
At Home He Feels Like A Tourist 