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.
Rotterdam at Trafalgar Studios, SW1
reviewed for The Times, 29 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, Alice’s...
Read MoreStig of the Dump at the Arts Theatre, WC2
reviewed for The Times, 28th July 2016 It’s the summer holidays, and the season of vamped-up childcare masquerading as children’s theatre. Yet if you were hoping to sit your kids passively in front of something quiet for an hour, you might want to give Stig of the Dump a miss. Tom Attwood’s music...
Read MoreStig of the Dump at the Arts Theatre, WC2
reviewed for The Times, 28 July 2016 It’s the summer holidays, and the season of vamped-up childcare masquerading as children’s theatre. Yet if you were hoping to sit your kids passively in front of something quiet for an hour, you might want to give Stig of the Dump a miss. Tom Attwood’s music has...
Read MoreNow We Are Here at the Young Vic, SE1
reviewed for The Times, 26th July 2016 There’s a lot of refugee theatre about, for obvious reasons. Now We Are Here, a series of autobiographical monologues developed through the Young Vic’s Taking Part project, surprisingly succeeds as therapy for participants and as political storytelling for a...
Read More‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two’
reviewed for The Wall Street Journal, 25th July 2016 Hogwarts is full of ghosts. As always, in J.K. Rowling’s world, they’re not much help. “I am paint and memory,” warns a portrait of Albus Dumbledore ( Barry McCarthy), as a grown-up Harry Potter ( Jamie Parker) turns to him in yet another dark...
Read MoreJohn Tiffany interview
written for The Times, 21st July 2016 We don’t go in for celebrity theatre directors in Britain. Especially not if they look or sound like John Tiffany: bald, gangly, with an impish grin that bursts occasionally into a broad Yorkshire laugh. If he is not yet stopped in the street for autographs,...
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