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.
Waiting for Waiting for Godot, The St James Theatre, SW1
reviewed for The Times, 2 September 2016 As you might have guessed, we’re in for a parody of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Yet Dave Hanson’s light play is more reminiscent of another theatrical touchstone: the farcical Pyramus and Thisbe sketch that closes A Midsummer Night’s Dream....
Read MoreMuch Ado About Nothing by The Faction at Selfridges, W1
reviewed for The Times, 30 August 2016 It is a Shakespeare anniversary year and every toy shop in town has a Shakespeare Inc tie-in. This month, it’s the turn of Selfridges — yes, the department store — to show off its cultured side, by inviting the theatre troupe the Faction to perform Much Ado...
Read MoreLittle Shop of Horrors at the New Wimbledon Theatre
reviewed for The Times, 8 August 2016 It’s the show that spawned a thousand Simpsons episodes. Or at least a few good ones. The emotionally stunted Seymour (played here by an earnest Sam Lupton) works the graveyard shift in a Skid Row flower shop until a wonder-plant falls conveniently into his lap....
Read More946 — The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips at Shakespeare’s Globe, SE1
reviewed for The Times, 19 August 2016 Fans of Michael Morpurgo know the drill. In 946, as in War Horse, the love of an animal helps humans to cope with the horrors of war. In this latest stage adaptation of a Morpurgo novel, we meet the 11-year-old farmgirl Lily and her oft-disappearing cat,...
Read MoreYerma at the Young Vic, SE1
reviewed for The Times, 5 August 2016 Remember when Billie Piper was a toothy teen? No, me neither. But if any ghosts still lingered of Piper’s pop tart youth — synthetic disco anthems and that wedding to Chris Evans — they vanished for good last night in an extraordinary theatrical triumph at...
Read MoreRotterdam at Trafalgar Studios, SW1
reviewed for The Times, 29th July 2016 Alice can’t handle decisions. For the past seven years, she’s talked about leaving Rotterdam, Europe’s busiest port and an apt location for a play consumed by transition. When Alice’s girlfriend, Fiona, announces that (s)he should really be Adrian,...
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