Features
Edinburgh: Cradle of shows that conquered the world
Every act at the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe dreams of making it big, and a special few succeed. As performers gather for the 2010 event, illustrious predecessors tell Arifa Akbar and Harry Morgan about the Scottish nights when their careers took off
Inside Features
On the agenda: Chichester International Film Festival; Cornish Kneehigh theatre company; Net-a-Porter; Monocle Mediterraneo; Great British Beer Festival; Underage Festival
Sunday, 1 August 2010
Britain's top actresses go on strike and the world's biggest pub re-opens its doors
Knocked for Six's notes from the Underground
Friday, 30 July 2010
Whether you are shoved up against someone's armpit or stuck next to a touchy-feely couple, there is nowhere quite like the tube for being up close and personal. Now Knocked for Six, a writing collective who met last year on the Royal Court's Unheard Voices programme, have turned their tube experiences into an evening of short plays entitled End of the Line: Tales on the Tube.
Age can wither them: Will today’s hit plays still be being revived in 50 years' time?
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Private Lives and After the Dance both caused a sensation when they appeared in the Thirties and are still being successfully revived. But will today’s hit plays last the course?
Soldier's story is still hitting the target
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
The Donmar's production of a play about a battlefield mistake rings horribly true, says Iraq veteran Colonel Tim Collins
On the agenda: Fitzrovia Radio Hour; Akala; Ane Lan's Dream Chamber; Oakley; Gelupo; Garden Party to Make a Difference
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Hip-hop in a library? Shhh! Plus, sorbets, shades and self-deluding dreams...
The Diary: Antony Gormley; Rambert Dance Company; Coronation Street; Swan Lake; Carnival of Monsters
Friday, 23 July 2010
Critics: hunks or halfwits?
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Why are critics portrayed as handsome hunks in Hollywood films but seedy creeps on the stage?
David Hyde Pierce: From mind games to Molière...
Monday, 19 July 2010
David Hyde Pierce has been lauded as a comic genius, a modern-day Buster Keaton for TV. Now he is the toast of the West End. Michael Coveney meets him
Theatre takes centre stage at music festivals
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Theatre is taking to the fields this summer to capitalise on the Great British Summer says Alice Jones.
|
Most popular in Arts & Entertainment
Read
1 Teen spirit: The 'Skins' sensation sweeping France
2 Summer reading just got smarter
3 American gallery to exhibit Ronnie Wood's art
4 BANNED: Books you could have been jailed for reading
5 Edinburgh: Cradle of shows that conquered the world
7 Bullet for My Valentine score Kerrang! awards double
8 Bird on a Wire: Up-close and personal portrait of genius
12 Robin Scott-Elliot: Tom Simpson: the tragic cyclist who never came down
13 Indy Choice: Best of the new films
15 The Booker's Dozen: judges reveal 13 works in line for literary prize
Emailed
1 Gore Vidal: Literary feuds, his 'vicious' mother and rumours of a secret love child
2 Edinburgh: Cradle of shows that conquered the world
3 Robin Scott-Elliot: Tom Simpson: the tragic cyclist who never came down
4 Album: Arcade Fire, The Suburbs (Mercury/Sonovox)
5 Who was the real Peter Grimes?
6 American gallery to exhibit Ronnie Wood's art
8
The Saturday Play: Murder in Samarkand, Radio 4
The Archers, Radio 4
9 Bird on a Wire: Up-close and personal portrait of genius
10 Indy Choice: Best of the new films
11 Teen spirit: The 'Skins' sensation sweeping France
12 Summer reading just got smarter
13 Album: Merz
Commented
|
FIVE BEST PLAYS
Aspects of Love
(Menier Chocolate Factory, London)
This brilliant little revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical is a mini-masterpiece, with a score of insinuating beauty and real emotional muscle in which the characters, in a daisy chain of love across the French Pyrenees, in Paris and Venice and first in Montpellier, express their passions and yearning in a through-sung melodic melisma. Michael Arden, a young Broadway singer sings beautifully as the hero, and he’s well matched by Katherine Kingsley as Rose, Dave Willetts as old George, and Rosalie Craig as Giuletta.
(020 7907 7060) to 26 Sept
Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2
(Shakespeare’s Globe, London)
It’s always a joy to see these marvellously plotted plays together. Dominic Dromgoole’s company of 20 actors does sterling work in the doubling department: William Gaunt, for one, is both a dignified Worcester and a hilariously whinnying Shallow. The unbuttoned, sometimes casual style at the Globe suits these plays very well, and helps release them into a new democracy beyond the RSC.
(020 7401 9919) to 3 Oct
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
(Chichester Festival Theatre)
Howard Brenton’s adaptation of Robert Tressell’s epic novel about a group of decorators doing up a house bought by the town’s mayor. Christopher Morahan makes deft use of his versatile ensemble cast, led by a quietly dignified Finbar Lynch as a muralist who attempts to instill some socialist principles into his fellow painters.
(01243 781312) to 26 Aug
Welcome to Thebes
(NT: Olivier, London)
Moira Buffini is only the second woman to have a new work staged in the Olivier and no one could accuse her of failing to rise to the challenge, with her exploration of the plight of a female protagonist who becomes the first democratic president of a third-world country that is emerging from a brutal civil war. It’s premiered in a vivid, expertly marshalled production by Richard Eyre.
(020 7452 3000) to 19 Aug
Legally Blonde
(Savoy Theatre, London)
Sheridan Smith is brilliantly warm, winning, witty and all-round adorable as Elle, who proves not to be the airhead she is taken for when she goes to Harvard Law School in this is ridiculously enjoyable musical.
(0870 871 7687) to 20 Feb