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 Two-Character Play, Jermyn Street Theatre
reviewed for The Spectator, 9 November 2010 For ten years, Tennessee Williams poured his soul into The Two-Character Play. It was the longest he ever spent working on one play and it would prove to be his most overtly personal expression. The Two-Character Play is the story of a hopeless brother and...
Read MoreOver Gardens Out, Riverside Studios
reviewed for The Spectator, 25 October 2010 Riverside Studios stills owes much of its reputation as one of London’s most daring powerhouses of fringe theatre to Peter Gill. As its founding Artistic Director, Gill inaugurated the Riverside tradition of high-risk commissions from young, experimental...
Read MoreBroken Glass, Tricycle Theatre
reviewed for The Spectator, 13 October, 2010 It’s November 1938 and Sylvia, a paranoid Jewish woman in Brooklyn, is struck by hysterical paralysis. But what’s really constricting her: fear of Germany’s Nazis or fear of her husband at home? There’s something crude and jagged about Arthur Miller’s...
Read MoreBoiling Frogs, Southwark Playhouse
reviewed for The Spectator, 23 September 2010 Boiling Frogs is an angry, important play. Set entirely in the mirrored cell of a police station, it hints at an Orwellian Britain in which civil liberties have been all but wiped away, by a State desperate to exert control over escalating terrorism, natural...
Read MoreDesign For Living, Old Vic
reviewed for The Spectator, 22 September 2010 The trouble with the Old Vic’s revival of Noel Coward’s play about Bright Young Things is that while the three principals are certainly Young, and may be rather ambiguous Things, there is very little that’s Bright about them whatsoever. Gilda, a wealthy...
Read MoreBedlam, Globe Theatre
reviewed for The Spectator, 12 September, 2010 The Southbank has always been an anarchic place. Shakespeare’s Globe proudly reminds visitors that Elizabethan theatres were considered far too lawless – and, implicitly, too much fun – to be licensed within the city limits. After years of rubbing...
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