Theatre
I currently write two regular monthly columns on theatre: one for Prospect Magazine as their theatre critic, and one for The Stage, drawing in part on my experience as Chair of the Drama Section of the UK Critics’ Circle.
Prior to the pandemic, I was the New York Review of Books‘ resident London theatre critic, and I had previously spent several years as the junior theatre critic at The Times, reviewing for that paper two or three times a week. I have also contributed theatre reviews to The Spectator, The Guardian, The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal. As a theatre programme obsessive, I regularly contribute programme notes to theatre and opera venues, and welcome inquiries about potential work in this area.
As Critics’ Circle Chair, I organise our prestigious annual Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards, the only awards made in British theatre purely on the basis of professional theatre critics’ votes, and without any input from vested interests within the industry. We successfully relaunched in April 2022 after the Covid-19 pandemic with a ceremony at London’s Ham Yard Hotel. I also maintain an active interest in arts philanthropy. I can date the moment I fell in love with theatre to a Joanna Laurens production at the Gate Theatre, W11. Consequently, I founded a Young Supporters’ Network at the Gate and have sat on their Development Working Group, which means that this is the only venue at which I now exclude myself from reviewing.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Windsor Great Park
reviewed for The Times, 30 June 2015 You can pick up plenty about a show from the adverts in its programme. Strolling into the ornate landscape of Windsor Great Park, I was handed a booklet thicker and glossier than most new companies can afford, replete with ads for private wealth management companies and...
Read Mored(ARE) / Here Be Lions, The Print Room, W11
reviewed for The Times, 12 June 2015 A thin bell jar hangs low from the ceiling of a darkened studio, swinging almost imperceptibly. A dancer enters. She squats, and begins to sway, mesmeric, beneath the rhythm of the jar. She seems to have starved herself for us. Her hair in two institutionally...
Read MoreResult, Pleasance Theatre, N7
reviewed for The Times, 1 May 2015 Mark, a gauche young sports psychologist, turns up at a major football club’s youth academy and is shocked to discover how little provision there is for mental health in the field of football. If that sounds a cold premise for a play, it’s because Result,...
Read MoreShock Treatment, King’s Head Theatre, N1
reviewed for The Times, 24 April 2015 Warnings about reality television don’t come more prescient than this. Shock Treatment, Richard O’Brien’s follow-up to his camp fiesta The Rocky Horror Show, originally came out as a film in 1981 and tells the story of an ordinary American woman so...
Read MoreOutside Mullingar, Ustinov Theatre, Bath
reviewed for The Times, 24 April 2015 John Patrick Shanley’s last major play won Meryl Streep one of her most-deserved Oscar nominations. Doubt, which Shanley directed when he adapted it from Broadway hit to Miramax movie, gave us four deeply veined characters struggling with the highest of stakes: the...
Read MoreLove’s Sacrifice, Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
reviewed for The Times, 22 April 2015 As a Renaissance scholar, I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for John Ford. Ford, who flourished at the early court of Charles I, is now enjoying something of a revival. His blood-soaked The Broken Heart recently finished a run at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker...
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