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.
Fury at the Soho Theatre, W1
written for The Times, 14th July 2016 Two kids by 21, that’s how Sam got her council flat. Tom, on the other hand, found the flatshare next door thanks to Zoopla and SpareRoom.com. Sam dodges social workers, scrubs toilets and steals from the corner shop to keep her sons out of care, so when it all...
Read MoreBugsy Malone at the Lyric Hammersmith, W6
reviewed for The Times, 29th June 2016 Remember Bugsy Malone? It’s 40 years since Alan Parker’s film, in which cheeky children play at being prepubescent gangsters waging a bitter turf war over the prohibited soda-pop supply. The Lyric Hammersmith knew it was on to a winner last year with the...
Read MoreThe Donkey Show at Proud Camden, NW1
reviewed for The Times, 22nd June 2016 Being a young critic, I was probably thought likely to know what to do at a glittering disco club night “loosely inspired” by the themes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Except, of course, that I chose to pass most evenings in my twenties in darkened rooms with...
Read MoreKaragula at Styx, N17
reviewed for The Times, 17th June 2016 Teenage proms, alas, seem to have made the firm leap from the US to the UK. Let’s hope they don’t translate quite as painfully as those of Mareka, the nightmarishly perfect suburbia at the heart of Philip Ridley’s new play. Behind white picket fences, a...
Read MorePhaedra(s) at the Barbican
reviewed for The Times, 14th June 2016 Phaedra’s mother, Queen Pasiphae of Crete, fell for a bull, conceiving the Minotaur in consequence. Phaedra herself lusts irredeemably for her stepson Hippolytus. When he rejects her, she accuses him of rape and is memorialised, like Potiphar’s wife, in the dark...
Read MoreI’d rather read Potter than Proust — confessions of a literary academic
written for The Times, 10th June 2016 In the summer of 1997, I started secondary school and so did Harry Potter. Potter obsessives will tell you that Harry James Potter was born on July 31, 1980, orphaned on Hallowe’en 1981, and arrived at Hogwarts School in the late summer of 1991 (certainly, the...
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