Tag Archives: National Theatre

Writer: Annie Baker Directors: Annie Baker and Chloe Lamford Reviewer: Richard Maguire Stories make us human. The making up and retelling of stories helps us understand the world and even how the planet was created. But what if there were no stories left to tell. Annie Baker’s new play examines the attempts of modern day storytellers to come up with ...

Writer: Brian Friel Director: Ian Rickson Reviewer: Scott Mattheman “I am a barbarian in this place,” Dermot Crowley’s Jimmy in Translations, “because I am not understood by anyone.” He is translating from Ovid, but the statement is one of Brian Friel’s defining themes in this play about Anglo-Irish attitudes. Translations is a common A-Level set text, which may account in ...

Writer: Athol Fugard Director: Roy Alexander Weise Reviewer: Stephen Bates By 1950, the year in which Athol Fugard’s play is set, the political system of Apartheid was in its infancy, but the social attitudes around which it was founded had much deeper roots. Initially banned in the writer’s native South Africa, ‘Master Harold’…and the boys premiered in the United States ...

Writer: Shelagh Delaney Director: Bijan Sheibani Reviewer: Rebecca Cohen The Lowry should be the perfect setting for National Theatre’s portrayal of the 1958 play A Taste of Honey. There is a reason it has been selected as the first pit stop for its latest tour – after all it is a compelling portrayal of working-class life in post-war Salford. However, ...

Writer: Simon Woods Director: Simon Godwin Reviewer: Stephen Bates Most of us may feel that we have had enough of politics in our lives right now, but actor turned playwright Simon Woods seems to think otherwise. His play is a forensic examination of the murky territory where the public and private lives of a politician and his wife intersect. It ...

Writer: Michael Morpurgo Adaptor: Nick Stafford Directors: Marianne Elliot and Tom Morris Touring Director: Katie Henry Reviewer: Matt Forrest 12 years on from its premiere at the National Theatre, residencies on the West End, Broadway and numerous national and international tours it would be no exaggeration to say that War Horse has become a theatrical institution, and on the basis ...

Book and Lyrics: Andy Stanton Music:Jim Fortune Director:Amy Hodge Reviewer: Maryam Philpott Schools out for the summer and theatreland has given itself over to feel-good comedies and family-friendly shows designed to entertain young and old alike. The National Theatre’s big summer production for kids is a musical adaptation of Andy Stanton’s book Mr Gum and the Dancing Beargiven surreal but ...

Writer: Ben Weatherill Director: Tim Hoare Reviewer: Scott Matthewman While the Dorfman Theatre is much the smallest of the National’s three stages, it can still be a struggle to make it seem as intimate as some of London’s smaller theatres. For a story of deeply personal relationships as Ben Weatherill’s Jellyfish, it means the cast – and the rest of ...