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.
King Lear with Glenda Jackson, Old Vic Theatre SE1
reviewed for The Wall Street Journal, 9 November 2016 In 1971, in a Chicago Tribune interview, Glenda Jackson summed up her career. In Ken Russell’s “The Music Lovers,” she had recently played Tchaikovsky’s hyper-sexed, institutionalized wife; her first hit on Broadway had been Peter Weiss’s...
Read MoreBreaking the Code at the Royal Exchange, Manchester
reviewed for The Times, 8 November 2016 Benedict Cumberbatch was a wiry, wary genius. Derek Jacobi was elfin, unpredictable, flickering with nervous energy. Daniel Rigby’s take on Alan Turing, at Manchester’s Royal Exchange, is more of a lumbering chap. Perhaps he’s less convincing as an amateur...
Read MoreThe Last Five Years at the St James Theatre, SW1
an edited version of this review was published in The Times, 4 November 2016 In the late 1990s, Jason Robert Brown’s career as a composer took off. Parade, a musical about a Southern antisemitic lynching, won him a Tony award before he was 30. Meanwhile, his wife’s career as an actress stalled....
Read MoreMagnificence at the Finborough
reviewed for The Times, 31 October 2016 Magnificence, for Howard Brenton, is the thrill of ripping the world apart. In this early play, Jed, who enjoys hallucinations of Lenin, takes hostage a politically passé government minister, promising, “the spectacle of you magnificently ablaze for the...
Read MoreCathy, Cardboard Citizens at the Pleasance Theatre, N7
reviewed for The Times, 19 October 2016 Cardboard Citizens make some of the most important theatre in the country. That does not mean it is always the most polished consumer experience. Inspired by Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, the bulk of this homelessness charity’s work is...
Read MoreVillette at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
reviewed for The Times, 6 October 2016 In an episode of Friends, Jennifer Aniston’s character, Rachel, attends an adult education class on Jane Eyre. She hasn’t done the homework, so her friend Phoebe fools her into believing that Charlotte Brontë’s novel is a futuristic tale about a cyborg....
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