Theatre

If you can’t take a joke, you really shouldn’t have joined. Some critics are up in arms that the 1979 ‘classic’ piece Amadeus has been deconstructed and, they say, dumbed down in the National...

If you are mining the classics for a rarely told story, Les Misérables proves that Victor Hugo is a profitable place to start. The master stroke of the creative team at Bristol Old Vic is to re-imagine his...

Shakespeare 101: muck/fuck about with it all you like, the poor sod’s well out of copyright, but the acid test for any modern rendering is 'if you hadn't seen this play before, would this production tell you...

In The Boys in the Band currently selling out the Park Theatre, Ian Hallard as Michael sings “any way you figure, it’s hard to be a nigger – but it’s better than being a jew”. There in one cheeky...

This isn’t an exhaustive list because there’ll be a panto somewhere in practically every postcode come December, but it is a rundown of your options – financial and artistic – for a special Christmas...

‘World famous in Australia’, Amanda Muggleton’s claim to celebrity in the UK is as Chrissie Latham in Prisoner Cell Block H.  I’ve never seen this show, last aired in 1986, but know its popular...

The best acting at Lunch and The Bow of Ulysses may have been director Nigel Harman’s actress wife, Lucy Liemann – she’s the bossy headmistress lusted after by Tom Hollander’s Rev on BBC2 - leaning...

Just off the Elephant and Castle roundabout, it’s no surprise to come across a grotty pub filled with strange and aggressive drunks. It is a delightful surprise to find it recreated so realistically inside...

It’s eerie that the morning after The Dover Road, I’m driving down the Dover road to a weekend in Kent, and Radio 4 is bemoaning the fact that no-one drives for the pleasure of it any more. Well, for the...

In his excellent 2013 biography of Benjamin Britten, Paul Kildea revealed that the composer died young because his heart was infected with tertiary syphilis acquired from long-time lover Peter Pears. This is...