At Home He Feels Like A Tourist

Category: Theatre

  • London theatre update

    So a few things to note since the last London theatre update. Booking opens 5th May (earlier for members of various hues) for the new batch of productions at the National Theatre. I reckon tickets for Follies, the Sondheim musical with a cast of thousands and the pocket rocket Imelda Staunton…

  • The Lottery of Love at the Orange Tree review ***

    The Lottery of Love The Orange Tree Theatre, 13th April 2017 Apparently there is even a noun for it, “Marivaudage”. Slightly sarcastically applied, but it describes a way of writing that is precious or affected, and is derived from our friend Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (I so wish my…

  • Twelfth Night at the National Theatre review ****

    Twelfth Night National Theatre, 10th April 2017 Now I’m not going to lie to you. The first couple of times when I saw Twelfth Night years ago I had no idea what was going on. Mind you I put no effort in and was, on one occasion I recall, knackered…

  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the Old Vic review ****

    Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead The Old Vic Theatre, 27th March 2017 Sorry I have come a bit late to the party here both in seeing this and then setting down a few thoughts. I am still a Stoppard virgin so you must treat me gently and this is the…

  • Ugly Lies the Bone at the National Theatre review ****

    Ugly Lies the Bone National Theatre, 28th March 2017 Tricky one this. It was by no means perfect, a little too thinly drawn for me, but there was so much to applaud that I think it worthy of a strong positive review. The playwright, Lindsay Ferrentino is entirely new to…

  • Balm in Gilead at the Guildhall School review ***

    Balm in Gilead Silk Street Theatre, 27th March 2017 Less a review, more a plug for the terrific music, drama and opera on offer to you, the London public, from the massively talented students (and teachers) at the Guildhall School on the Barbican site. There’s all manner of free stuff…

  • Tamburlaine at the Arcola Theatre review ***

    Tamburlaine Arcola Theatre, 6th April 2017 In many ways this was a brave piece of theatre. Tamburlaine, in two parts, was Christopher Marlowe’s first performed solo play, written in his early 20s, and which changed the course of English drama and massively influenced all the big boys of Elizabethan/Jacobean drama…

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Young Vic review ****

    A Midsummer Night’s Dream Young Vic Theatre, 29th March 2017 Earthy. That pretty much sums it up. I don’t generally hunt out productions of the Dream. It isn’t my favourite Shakespeare and I am not sure what surprises cast and director can generally bring to the table. However once again…

  • The Glass Menagerie at the Duke of York’s Theatre review ****

    The Glass Menagerie The Duke of York’s Theatre, 2nd March 2017 Sorry this is a bit late in the day but this is soldiering on until the end of April and is definitely worth seeing I think. So obviously this is a classic American play from a classic American playwright…

  • London theatre update

    Focussing on theatre and couldn’t be arsed to put in a photo. Most of this below post still applies but a few new shiny things have caught my beady eye. Some ideas for the culturally inclined in London At the Barbican booking opening for a Japanese version of Macbeth which…

  • The Kid Stays in the Picture at the Royal Court Theatre review *****

    The Kid Stays in the Picture Royal Court Theatre, 30th March 2017 So another of life’s minor annoyances caused by devoting too much time to work and not enough time to expanding the cultural horizons. I confess I have not read Robert Evans’s eponymous autobiography on which this play is…

  • Roman Tragedies at the Barbican review *****

    Roman Tragedies Barbican Theatre, 19th March 2017 Right that fella in the pic above is Hans Kesting. And for my money he is the best stage actor in the world (though to be fair the fact that I have only seen a small sub-set  of the total universe of stage actors…