theatre

Mercury theatre, Colchester This musical from the company behind The Play That Goes Wrong unearths the invention of acting in ancient Greece – and finds little has changed The Mischief theatre company has been making fun of actors’ foibles for years, especially in the deliriously amusing Goes Wrong series. Its first musical asks if all those rampaging egos, heated rivalries, creative differences …

Nottingham Playhouse Teenage crushes, breakups, careers, kids, fallings out and unbreakable loyalty – Jane Upton gives us a sweeping story of two best mates Imagine if One Day was set in Long Eaton. Now, take its sweeping, time-spanning love story, but make it platonic, and about two theatre-obsessed best mates. That’s the foundation for Jane Upton’s luminous, heart-exploding play, which catches …

Arcola theatre, London The 70s novel about the everyday grumbles of four office workers remains just as relevant, playfully staged by director Dominic Dromgoole It’s no wonder why Barbara Pym’s bittersweet and quietly profound novel about four prickly office workers approaching retirement has not been adapted for the stage before. Its charm is tightly wedded to the rich interiority of its charact…

Carolyn Dell’s career path was ignited by a fireworks show. As a sophomore in high school, Dell’s father — who worked in theme parks entertainment — gave her the opportunity to program part of a fireworks show at Six Flags. Dell watched as her art lit up the sky and became the backdrop for a couple’s surprise engagement. That’s when she knew that, no matter what, she needed to continue making art…

The Royal Court is presenting the Slow Horses star’s version of one Beckett masterpiece alongside 19-year-old Leo Simpe-Asante’s riff on another. They combine beautifully Where does the time go? It’s a year since Gary Oldman performed Krapp’s Last Tape in York, returning him to the Theatre Royal where at the age of 21 he played a sleepy panto cat . Now, Samuel Beckett’s play has a homecoming of i…

Perth theatre Aside from a brief pre-shoot ‘discussion’, this take on Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film has little to offer – despite some fine performances Over the past decade or so, Morag Fullarton has been developing a popular line in bijou Hollywood adaptations. With a camp flourish and a multitasking cast, the writer and director has boiled down favourites including Casablanca and It’s a Won…

Report suggests that popular initiatives such as NT Live and NT at Home are making UK audiences more adventurous Theatre streaming services and cinema screenings of stage performances are not a threat to “in-person” attendance and are making audiences more adventurous, according to new research commissioned by the National Theatre . Introducing the findings on Monday, the NT’s director, Indhu Rub…

Lowry, Salford The tale of a Burnley businessman who gives his town a financial leg-up overeggs the north-south cultural divide, but Pippa Cleary’s bright musical numbers propel the positivity Was ever a musical so eager to be liked, so anxious not to exclude? It is not just the patronising pre-show introduction, which assumes we have never been in a theatre and insists we all hate bankers. It is…

Everyman theatre, Liverpool Beginning as a culture clash comedy with cups of tea and deadly intent, this two-hander becomes boldly arresting If you want someone to credit for the big laughs in the first half of this slippery production, look no further than Hilary Mantel. It was the Wolf Hall author who, in her 2014 short story , imagined a case of mistaken identity in a genteel Windsor home wher…

The actor commands the stage in Tom Morris’s striking production of Shakespeare’s tragedy, while Rachel Zegler and Ben Platt unite for The Last Five Years When David Harewood was offered the lead in Othello in a new West End production, he found he still knew his lines from almost 30 years earlier, when he became the first black actor to play the role at the National Theatre. Harewood brings prof…

Wicked star’s one-woman West End show was stopped in response to an increasingly common problem for theatres A performance of Dracula in the West End on Monday night was halted after its star, Cynthia Erivo, spotted that an audience member appeared to be filming the show. A representative for the production, in which Erivo plays all 23 roles, confirmed that there had been a short stop caused by t…

Tron theatre, Glasgow Frances Poet’s music-driven drama reconstructs the Greenock dispute that saw 240 workers square up to bosses It was the early days of the Thatcher project. At the start of 1981, the free-market chill was about to lay waste to the Linwood car plant, Bobby Sands was beginning his fatal hunger strike and formerly militant unions were feeling cowed by the implications of the 198…

Royal Court theatre, Liverpool Writer-actor Aron Julius captures the sparkling charm of Liverpudlian fighter John Conteh in a punch-by-punch account of his career Don King is singing the praises of his new signing. The boxing impresario, played by Zach Levene with an extravagant bouffant, sees something special in John Conteh , the light-heavyweight champion. It is a talent that goes beyond the r…

Churchill theatre, Bromley James M Cain’s hard-bitten novella gained bleak power on screen but this version, giving Mischa Barton her UK stage debut, loses its flinty edge The West End’s woeful High Noon showed how hard it is to put a western on stage. How about another rugged American genre, the film noir? James M Cain’s cynical, gripping 1936 novella was sharpened for the 1944 movie by director…

The play about Mozart’s jealous rival – a co-production with the Welsh National Theatre set up by the actor last year – will open in Cardiff before a 16-week run in London’s West End Michael Sheen will return to the West End to star in a revival of Peter Shaffer’s award-winning Amadeus, opposite Callum Scott Howells as Mozart. Directed by Jeremy Herrin, the production will open at New Theatre Car…

Abbey, Dublin An unnamed narrator recollects a 1970s childhood of institutional brutality and sectarianism in this allusive memory play Language is twisted and slippery in Frank McGuinness disturbing new memory play for the Abbey theatre. As an unnamed narrator, Man (Ryan Donaldson) looks back on his 1970s youth during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, he says that the past “does not belong to me…

Dance House, Cardiff Tudur Owen’s Welsh-language play about a second world war veteran is unashamedly heartfelt and anchored by very fine performances This play by Tudur Owen tells the story of a curmudgeonly second world war veteran, an unexpected windfall, a clogged toilet and an entire Welsh village’s trip to London in 1994. It has the air of a fable that veers into more anguished terrain. PTS…

Tony award-winning actor will play lead role of Judith Bliss in Noël Coward’s comedy at Wyndham’s theatre in London Christine Baranski is to make her West End debut alongside Richard E Grant in a revival of Noël Coward’s comedy Hay Fever. The US star, known for her TV roles in The Good Fight and The Gilded Age , says she is looking forward to “tearing a passion to tatters” in the 1925 play about …

Shaftesbury theatre, London Twenty years since its West End debut, the sweetly subversive musical returns with a few tweaks and a lot of heart The trigger warning “puppet nudity” does not begin to cover it. You will also see puppets having sex, singing about being “a little bit racist” and gleefully owning up to their predilections for porn. Avenue Q’s cute subversiveness is back, 20 years after …

Old Vic theatre, London Director Clint Dyer brings a fresh political focus to Ken Kesey’s story of disempowerment but the relentless misogyny of the text feels retrograde When Randle P McMurphy is thrust into an American psychiatric hospital in the early 1960s, the torpid air begins to crackle. As the anarchic McMurphy, Aaron Pierre gives a storming performance but although Clint Dyer’s stirring …