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.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Southwark Playhouse, SE1
reviewed for The Times, 9th June 2016 Another week, another A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The big institutions — the BBC, the RSC, the Globe — have all had their go this anniversary year and now it’s the turn of the small, spare Southwark Playhouse. The biggest draw is Freddie Fox (son of Edward,...
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The Night Watch at the Royal Exchange, Manchester
reviewed for The Times, 26th May 2016 Theatregoers bustle in the lobby of the Royal Exchange as booms of the Blitz echo portentously from the sound system. At the interval, a uniformed air-raid warden strides past with a bell to warn us to take shelter again in the central pod of the Exchange’s theatre...
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After Independence at Arcola, E8
reviewed for The Times, 10th May 2016 British audiences remember the Zimbabwean land crisis of the early 2000s from a steady diet of predictable TV images. Embattled white farmers, loss and pride etched in their faces, facing down gangs of Robert Mugabe’s thugs. Zanu-PF told a different story about...
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The Easter Rising and Thereafter at the Jermyn Street Theatre, SW1
reviewed for The Times, 28th April 2016 Few would think the Irish civil war could make a cabaret act, but Christopher Bland almost pulls it off. Sir Christopher Bland, the programme tells us, “is an Anglo-Irishman whose critically acclaimed first novel, Ashes in the Wind, was published in 2014”....
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In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel at the Charing Cross Theatre, WC2
reviewed for The Times, 13th April 2016 Perhaps Robert Chevara’s production is primarily one for Williams aficionados but Marlowe’s performance is compelling. Tennessee Williams’s late plays aren’t much cop, although Gene David Kirk made a good case for The Two-Character Play with Catherine Cusack...
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The Golden Thrones: the best and worst loos in theatreland
reviewed for The Times, 8th April 2016 Nothing puts a damper on a night at the theatre quite like a substandard bog. Cramped jakes, vermin-infested crappers, inaccessible “disabled” loos — the lavatorial crimes of the nation’s arts venues are legion. Insufficient provision for women is a perennial...
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