Stage
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The Birthday Party review – Pinter's cryptic classic turns 60 with a starry castToby Jones, Zoë Wanamaker, Stephen Mangan and Pearl Mackie do rich justice to the playwright’s strange and captivating psychodrama
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The astounding 250-year story of circusWhen was the first trapeze performance? Who launched ‘the greatest show on Earth’? And which showman was celebrated in song by the Beatles? Here’s a history of circus in 25 moments -
Toyah Willcox webchat – post your questions nowThe singer and actor, who is starring in a stage version of Derek Jarman’s punk movie Jubilee, will answer your questions at 1.30pm GMT on Monday 22 January -
The Claim review – asylum seeker's fate becomes absurdist comedyTim Cowbury’s play avoids the usual harrowing style associated with its subject and is swift, clear and well-acted -
'There'd be outrage if it was written today'Was the Royal Court right to put on Rita, Sue and Bob Too? We asked three playwrights to look afresh at Andrea Dunbar’s story of two girls preyed on by an older man
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All’s Well That Ends Well review – flaming tale of misconduct burns outShakespeare’s play about deceit and self-deception is given a gloomy candlelit production with some misjudged comedy
Brexit shorts
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The kings and queens of couture – and their most dazzling dance creationsFrom Chanel’s Riviera bathers to Alexander McQueen’s cross-dressing spywear, we explore the spellbinding results when giants of fashion cross into dance
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Mark Thomas on his West Bank comedy clubWhen the activist-standup put on a comedy show in a refugee camp in Jenin, the jokes he heard were angry, funny – and radical -
Who are you calling a northern working-class comic?Her childhood in care, her mother’s heroin addiction, her days as a sex worker … Bolton comic Sophie Willan is turning the details of her life into dazzling standup -
French comedian Yassine Belattar: ‘It’s the death threats I find hard’As a Muslim who jokes about jihad and Islamophobia, President Macron’s favourite comedian knew he would upset some of his fellow Frenchmen. What he didn’t expect was a furious attack from the left -
'Chinese burn? We just say burn': comics on joking about race and immigrationPhil Wang has a messy relationship with the British empire. Evelyn Mok felt dirty joking about her family. Kae Kurd riffs on being a refugee. Aisha Alfa was shocked to find she had a ‘black perspective’. They talk patriotism, stereotypes and stigmas
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RSC to explore press freedom in play about exiled Turkish editor#WeAreArrested is based on book by Can Dündar, sentenced to jail after exposing arms deals -
Girl from the North Country lets us hear Bob Dylan's mysteries anewConor McPherson’s West End musical puts a simple twist on familiar and obscure tracks, finding new shades of meaning -
Southbank Centre artistic director Jude Kelly to step downKelly, director of UK’s largest arts centre since 2006, wants to focus on Women of the World festival -
Politics, star power and prison Shakespeare: how Josie Rourke rocked the DonmarRourke, who will leave the London theatre in 2019, staged perky experiments, rapid-fire responses and invigorating revivals. Who will take her place?
Pictures & video
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'I became a black man when I arrived in England'Inua Ellams speaks about black masculinity, his story as an immigrant and how he channels anger into his art
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Tristram Kenton's stage photos of 2017From Follies at the National to Ink at the Almeida and Marnie at the Coliseum, revisit some of the year’s theatre, dance and opera productions -
The Bolshoi Ballet in London - in picturesImages from photographer Sasha Gusov’s book documenting the dancers rehearsing and performing between 1993 and 2016
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Addiction v art: the radical theatre in the heart of Crackland
As police yesterday yet again applied brute force to the residents of São Paulo's 1,000-strong encampment of addicts, a group of artists is trying something wildly different
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The poster art of the National TheatreAfter 54 years of enticing audiences into the stalls, the National Theatre’s posters are getting their own moment in the spotlight with an exhibition -
National Youth Dance Company performs in Hull
Forty of the UK's top young dancers take sequences from their latest Sadler's Wells production to various locations around Hull, this year's UK city of culture
You may have missed
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Inside the RSC's mind-boggling props HQFrom gleaming crowns to bubbling cauldrons, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s gigantic prop store is a place of jaw-dropping theatrical alchemy -
Creativity can be taught to anyone. So why are we leaving it to private schools?The UK’s creative industries are world leading. Excluding state-educated people from the arts will throw that excellence away, warns the director of the National Theatre -
My ideal theatreDuring David Hare’s 50 years in theatre its fortunes have changed beyond recognition. In the face of cultural cuts and crises, he sets out his vision for a Playhouse for today
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It's got ice, tanks, a plane, a submarine – and lots of explosionsAs the fast-car phenomenon spawns a live show, our writer pulls in for a backstage tour -
How actors use perfumes to get into characterPlaying Thatcher? Dab on Bluebell. Got a part in Hairspray? Reach for the Madame Rochas. We lift the lid on how actors use smells to nail a role -
On my radar: James Graham’s cultural highlightsThe playwright on the renaissance of Hull, ironing to documentaries, and the romance of the Caledonian sleeper train
John Barton obituary
Director and RSC co-founder dies aged 89
John Barton's career – in pictures