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 Knight of the Burning Pestle, Shakespeare’s Globe
reviewed for The Spectator, 27 February 2014 If Monty Python were working in 1607, they might have come up with something like Francis Beaumont’s raucous The Knight of the Burning Pestle. A parody of popular chivalric romances of the day, the play follows the adventures of Rafe, an oafish grocer’s...
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The Duchess of Malfi, Sam Wannamaker Theatre at the Globe
reviewed for Conservative Home, 30 January 2014 The last time I saw Gemma Arteton play dead she was lying on James Bond’s hotel bed, her nude body glistening with black oil. I’ve just watched her asphyxiated again, as the doomed title role in John Webster’s Duchess of Malfi, so although this time her...
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Coriolanus, Donmar Warehouse
reviewed for Conservative Home, 19 December 2013 Is there a more toxic cry than “plebs”? I’d bet my house that Andrew Mitchell never uttered the word during that notorious stand-off at the Downing Street gates last year. But if Mitchell wants to see himself played by a Hollywood heartthrob, he might...
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The National Theatre – 50 years (and more) in The Spectator
written for the “From Our Archives” section, at The Spectator, 2 November 2013 Today the National Theatre hosts a gala performance, screened on BBC2 at 9pm, to celebrate fifty years since its launch as a company in 1963. You can view the full programme here – I’d wanted to be cynical about a...
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Tory Boyz, Ambassadors Theatre
reviewed for Conservative Home, on 24 October 2013 Nina: I remember at Uni, sharing a house. We’d have arguments about the washing up. I would just do mine. Another housemate would sometimes do other people’s. Her point being if everyone chipped in, it’s nicer. And fairer. I thought if everyone...
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Grounded, Gate Theatre
reviewed for Conservative Home, 26 September 2013 I’m not the type of woman who ever dreamed of being a fighter pilot. But Lucy Ellinson, the dynamic sole-performer of the Gate Theatre’s Grounded, could have convinced me otherwise. For Ellinson’s pilot, it’s all about the free open sky – ‘my...
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