Tag Archives: Rae Smith

Writer: Inua Ellams Director: Bijan Sheibani Reviewer: Dominic Corr We incessantly talk to three people; the barman, perhaps a priest, but always your barber. From the outset, there’s catalytic energy bouncing around, flinging us from Africa to the barbers of Catford, Lewisham or Brixton in a showcase of sensational world-building. Poetic in construct, Inua Ellams’ Barber Shop Chronicles is the height of ...

Writer: Inua Ellams Director: Bijan Sheibani Reviewer: John Kennedy This heart and soul hug from a 100% proof rum-soaked octopus, is a pan-African celebratory safari of the human condition. The episodic chronicles, bookended with a capella tribal chants rendered in location-context local dialects, are a seductive, ear-stalking delight. These barbers’ shops monopolise the community-chest treasury of folly, frailty and home-spun ...

Writer: Tennessee Williams Director: James Mcdonald Reviewer: Karl O’Doherty The thickness of the air around the clifftop veranda feels almost physical in James Mcdonald’s production of this hot, sticky, sometimes disturbing, always intriguing play. Trapped in a Mexican rainforest at a tin-roofed collection of shacks trying to be a hotel where people can run to when their problems get overwhelming, ...

Writer: Inua Ellams Director: Bijan Sheibani Designer: Rae Smith Reviewer: Charlotte Broadbent Inua Ellams was inspired to write Barber Shop Chronicles after being handed a flyer in 2010 which detailed a pilot project aiming to teach barbers the rudiments of counselling. He went on to consider the cultural and historical significance of the local barbershop. Whether it be in south ...

Writer: Henrik Ibsen Adaptor: Duncan Macmillan  Director: Ian Rickson  Reviewer: Scott Matthewman Beth Rosmer is perhaps the most influential character in Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm, despite her suicide a year before the curtain rises. Rae Smith’s set contains a tangible reminder of her death: when she jumped into the river by the Rosmer family home, her body clogged up the water ...

Writer: William Shakespeare  Director: Rufus Norris Reviewer: Charlotte Broadbent The National Theatre is taking its latest production of Macbeth around the country. The London run was met with mixed reviews and ran at a similar time to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production, which inevitably prompted comparisons. Rufus Norris’s offering is undeniably unique and the entire design team has constructed a ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Rufus Norris Reviewer: Joan Phillips Raven-black and using the full depth of Theatre Royal Plymouth’s deep stage, designer Rae Smith’s cavernous, almost subterranean set, ominously establishes the doomed atmosphere that permeates throughout the National Theatre’s production of Macbeth. A huge arched bridge descends sharply to the front of the stage at floor level, and ascending to ...

Writer: Brian Friel Director: Ian Rickson Reviewer: Scott Matthewman In the latest episode of his podcast Lexicon Valley, linguistics professor John McWhorter considers what it may take for one language to become universal. Dismissing both Mandarin Chinese and Esperanto’s prospects – the former relying too much on intonation of the same vowel sounds to form completely different words, the latter ...