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.
The Angry Brigade, Theatre Royal, Plymouth
reviewed for The Times, 26 September 2014 Remember when a group of privately educated anarchists bombed the home of the Secretary of State for Employment? Perhaps you don’t, but if you’re one of the thousands who saw This House on stage or on livescreen, you will know that the playwright James Graham...
Read MoreBeyond Caring, The Yard
reviewed for The Spectator, 15 July 2014 Zero-hours contracts: refuse to work with one, and you might lose your benefits. To the Left, it’s preeminent proof of the Coalition’s malevolence, a brightly blazoned slave contract clutched in a cold Tory fist. So it’s no wonder that the lefty press...
Read MoreWolf Hall / Bring Up The Bodies, Aldwych Theatre
Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, Aldwych Theatre, reviewed for The Spectator, 25 May 2014. In Hilary Mantel’s Tudor England, it never stops raining. As she writes in her evocative programme note for the RSC stage adaptation of Wolf Hall, she first envisaged the life of Henry VIII’s political fixer,...
Read MoreCutting all state funding to the arts would be monstrous
written for The Spectator, 28 April 2014, based on ‘The Next Stage”, in The Modernisers’ Manifesto One of the best things about The Spectator is that it has no party line. As its dauntless refusal to compromise on Leveson Inquiry has shown, it is incomparably committed to the free speech of...
Read MoreHandbagged, Vaudeville Theatre
discussed for The Spectator, 12 April 2014 Why do the Left love the Queen? Sure, most of us agree she’s done an excellent job in a difficult role, only screwing up a few major life decisions: tricksy choice of husband, wintry education of her children, fastidious attitude to peanuts. But as one of the...
Read MoreBlithe Spirit, Gielgud Theatre
reviewed for The Spectator, 19 March 2014 If you’d asked me before this week, I’m afraid I’d have guessed Angela Lansbury had already reached the spirit world. I’ve always imagined her eternally inhabiting the mid-twentieth century, as the prim but decidedly experimental home front heroine...
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