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.
Bound / The Tempest
Bound, Southwark Playhouse, and The Tempest, St Giles Cripplegate reviewed for The Spectator, 17 October 2011 Sea-storms seem to be buffeting London theatre at the moment, and I’m not just talking about Trevor Nunn’s sugar-saturated Tempest. Down at the Southwark Playhouse, Edinburgh Fringe hit Bound...
Read MoreGround Zero
On artistic responses to September 11. Published in two parts at The Spectator: on 10 October 2011 and 11 October 2011 There’s a moment in Rupert Goold’s latest production, Decade, in which a gaunt widow (Charlotte Randle) stares up and into the empty space just left of where the North Tower used...
Read MoreVictoria Station / One for the Road, The Print Room
reviewed for The Spectator, 27 September 2011 As our television screens luxuriate again with images of Downton Abbey, one of its cast members is starring in an altogether grittier production in the heart of West London. Last time we saw Kevin Doyle, he was pleading a lung condition to escape being sent to...
Read MoreThe Tempest, Royal Haymarket Theatre
reviewed for The Spectator, 9 September 2011 The Tempest is back in town, and with a star like Ralph Fiennes in the lead, it’s unlikely that Trevor Nunn’s new production will need much help from the critics to get bums on seats. But although Fiennes brings a moving dignity to Shakespeare’s tale of a...
Read MoreFor Services Rendered, The Union Theatre
reviewed for The Spectator, 28 July 2011 Despite the early 1930s chintz curtains, there is something morbidly contemporary about Somerset Maugham’s drawing room melodrama, For Services Rendered, recently produced at the Union Theatre. Or as the affluent older generation noted, ‘The nation can’t afford...
Read MoreThe Government Inspector / Dream Story
The Government Inspector, Young Vic; Dream Story, Gate Theatre reviewed for The Spectator, 8 July 2011 It’s a slightly surreal time to be a theatre-goer in London. Two of the most exciting productions running at the moment both trace descents into the more disconcerting reaches of human fantasy. But,...
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