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Published: 24 June 2009
As troops fight on in Afghanistan, Hampstead theatre’s revival of Frank McGuinness’s 1986 play illuminates the futility of war with a portrayal of eight men being led to almost certain… Read More
Published: 23 June 2009
New productions by Fevered Sleep and Oily Cart, plus a brand new pantomime production of Jack And The Beanstalk, form the autumn children’s theatre season at the Lyric Hammersmith. The… Read More
F***ing Men and Naked Boys Singing 2009, the two shows currently enjoying hugely successful runs at Islington’s King’s Head theatre, are to transfer to the more central Arts theatre from… Read More
Published: 22 June 2009
Frank, Sammy & Dean – The Rat Pack Live From Las Vegas is to swing its way back to the West End stage this autumn, when it plays a limited… Read More
Matt Lucas is to return to the stage in Prick Up Your Ears, a new play by Simon Bent about the life of the late playwright Joe Orton, which premieres… Read More
Published: 19 June 2009
Booking opens on 14 July for this year’s Kids Week and to celebrate, free children’s tickets are being offered for a special matinee performance of We’re Going On A Bear… Read More
Published: 18 June 2009
After three decades as a writer of crime and adventure stories, Anthony Horowitz has an impressive catalogue of work behind him that comprises television series Foyle’s War and Poirot, film… Read More
Touring musical Dreamboats And Petticoats is to enjoy a summer season in the West End when it comes to the Savoy theatre on 22 July (press night 27 July). Written… Read More
Writer Che Walker and composer Arthur Darvill have teamed up once again to create a second piece as punchy, relevant and soul-fuelled as their first, Shakespeare’s Globe’s The Frontline. This… Read More
Has there ever been a more appropriate title for a show than Derren Brown: Enigma? The world-renowned mentalist, and everything he does, is a wonderfully intriguing puzzle that leaves audiences… Read More
Published: 17 June 2009
It seems an odd accusation to throw around – it probably speaks volumes for the cynical age in which we live – but Lara Foot Newton’s multi award-winning show, Karoo… Read More
Playwright David Hare’s response to the credit crunch, a new work entitled The Power Of Yes, is to be staged at the National Theatre this autumn. The piece, which plays… Read More
The Tricycle theatre’s association with South African theatre-making is long-held, so it is appropriate that the Kilburn venue should present the UK premiere of Lara Foot Newton’s award-winning play Karoo… Read More
Published: 16 June 2009
Paul McGann is to return to the London stage this summer in Frank McGuinness’s new version of Helen at Shakespeare’s Globe.He joins the previously announced Pennie Downie in a cast… Read More
Ed Byrne has joined Ross Noble and Dylan Moran on the list of comedians bringing stand up comedy to the West End stage this autumn. The Irish comedian, whose television… Read More
Published: 15 June 2009
Helen Dallimore, who last appeared in the West End playing Glinda in Wicked, returns to the London stage next month in new musical Too Close To The Sun.She is joined… Read More
Siamese opulence quite literally floods the Royal Albert Hall for this new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King And I.Performed in the round, the stage even has a moat… Read More
Jonathan Pryce, Lindsay Duncan and Sue Johnston are among those honoured in the Queen’s birthday honours list this year. Duncan and Pryce, who have both been on the West End… Read More
Published: 12 June 2009
The Theatre Royal Haymarket Company is giving budding young actors the chance to train and perform on a West End stage this summer. Teens aged 15-18 can join a week’s… Read More
A new production of South African musical The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso will come to London’s Garrick theatre for a short run from 11 September to 3 October (press night 15… Read More
The curtain opens at the Lyttelton theatre to reveal a widescreen set of cinematic intensity, sandstone rocks cutting a ragged, stark outline against the azure sky.This is designer Bob Crowley’s… Read More
Published: 11 June 2009
With alfresco theatres and leafy backdrops one of the highlights of the summer theatre season, this year there is a new rival for London’s most magical venue in the form… Read More
With the anniversaries of the publication of two of George Orwell’s famous novels coinciding, Daily Telegraph deputy theatre critic Dominic Cavendish has compiled an evening of excerpts from Orwell’s work,… Read More
Published: 10 June 2009
Following on from last year’s children’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Open Air theatre, Regent’s Park, gives Shakespeare’s The Tempest a similar treatment, drawing out every iota of… Read More
The second of the Bridge Project’s offerings at the Old Vic, following The Winter’s Tale, is more consistent than the first. In The Cherry Orchard there is no swapping between… Read More
It was inevitable, like the ever onward movement of time, that when Ed Stoppard decided to appear in his father Tom’s most famous play, he would become the focus of… Read More
As the England football team sails through another world cup qualifier, it seems an appropriate time to steal a cliché from that sport. Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale really is a… Read More
Published: 9 June 2009
Lindsay Posner’s revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein fantasy musical Carousel is to end its run at the Savoy theatre on 20 June, a month earlier than planned. The production, which… Read More
Following the Royal Court’s summer season celebrating the work of American playwright Wallace Shawn, the Sloane Square venue turns its attention to new British work for this autumn.Joining the previously… Read More
Tackling the subject of a human tragedy that was at the forefront of both the political world and the media just nine years ago is not an easy thing to… Read More
Is there more joyful a place than the Forest of Arden in Shakespeare’s Globe’s new production of As You Like It? It is hard to think of one.This Arden is… Read More
Published: 8 June 2009
The Woman In Black, the West End’s longest running supernatural chiller, celebrated 20 years of scaring audiences witless at the weekend with an anniversary performance on 6 June.The haunting ghost… Read More
Jane Horrocks is to return to the Young Vic later this year to star in the revival of Irving Berlin’s musical Annie Get Your Gun, the show’s first London production… Read More
Billy Elliot The Musical picked up a record 10 Tony Awards at a ceremony at Radio City Music Hall, New York, last night. The British musical, which had been nominated… Read More
Published: 5 June 2009
Kevin Spacey and Trevor Nunn are to reunite at the Old Vic for a production of 1955 American play Inherit The Wind. Nunn will direct Spacey in the drama in… Read More
There really is a little bit of everything in Arcadia; comedy, drama, intellectual debate, heartbreaking emotions, fantasy, reality and mystery. So much, in fact, that it might appear a random… Read More
Published: 4 June 2009
Jude Law, alone, haunted, crouched in the darkness, surrounded by the towering bleakness of Elsinor. It is a wordless opening scene that masterfully sets the tone for the Hollywood star’s… Read More
Published: 3 June 2009
Kevin R McNally, character actor, well-known pirate and former television scriptwriter, tells Caroline Bishop about his new found classical career for the Donmar Warehouse.Kevin R McNally, it transpires, is a… Read More
Elaine Paige and a host of Theatreland stars were on hand at tkts Leicester Square this lunchtime to help promote the changes to the West End’s only official theatre ticket… Read More
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, the Tennessee Williams play that enjoyed a sell out run on Broadway, has confirmed that it will open at the Novello theatre this December,… Read More
Sean Holmes’s first season as Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith is to include revivals of Comedians and Three Sisters alongside premieres of new work by Simon Stephens, Jeremy Dyson… Read More
Whoopi Goldberg was at the London Palladium last night for the opening night of Sister Act, the new musical based on the hit 1992 film in which she starred.Goldberg is… Read More
Published: 2 June 2009
A quintet of the West End’s leading musical theatre actresses are to take to the stage at the Prince of Wales theatre’s Delfont Room this summer as part of its… Read More
Notting Hill venue the Gate theatre has been awarded £254,000 from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Breakthrough Fund, recognising the work of its Artistic Directors Natalie Abrahami and Carrie Cracknell.The fund,… Read More
Shakespeare’s most feminist play, Much Ado About Nothing, filled with gossip, rumours and, of course, a healthy dose of mistaken identity, plays in the alfresco setting of the Open Air… Read More
Published: 1 June 2009
For years one of the stage’s brightest and most glamorous stars, Danny La Rue has died. The cross-dressing comedian, who had been suffering from cancer, passed away peacefully in his… Read More
Laurence Olivier Award-winning actor Matthew Kelly has been cast in Shakespeare’s Globe’s upcoming production of Troilus And Cressida.Kelly is joined in the Matthew Dunster-directed production by Laura Pyper and Paul… Read More
As we learned today of the death of the last survivor of the Titanic disaster, it seems appropriate that the Landor theatre is currently staging a show which harks back… Read More
It can’t be easy to direct a production by email, yet that was the task set Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami when complications surrounding his visa application became too much to… Read More
Published: 29 May 2009
The new cast for the hit stage adaptation of Calendar Girls has been announced. Among the new intake are former EastEnders stars Jill Halfpenny, Anita Dobson and Jack Ryder, alongside… Read More
Fans disappointed not to catch David Tennant playing Hamlet in the West End last Christmas will get another chance to see him in the role when the Royal Shakespeare Company… Read More
As part of the Travelex £10 ticket season, the National Theatre has taken All’s Well That Ends Well, one of Shakespeare’s less commonly performed plays, and placed the context in… Read More
The National Theatre has once again taken its oversized living room furniture out of storage in anticipation of its annual Watch This Space festival, which takes up residence in Theatre… Read More
Published: 28 May 2009
The Theatre Royal Haymarket production of Waiting For Godot, which stars Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, has extended its London run until 9 August.One of the hottest tickets in London… Read More
A musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture Of Dorian Gray is to play at the Leicester Square theatre this summer, opening on 2 July (previews from 23 June) and… Read More
The Comedy theatre is to host the world premiere of new musical Too Close To The Sun, which runs for a limited eight week season in the West End this… Read More
Ronald Harwood’s plays, written independently of each other, are now staged in repertoire at the Duchess theatre, painting a portrait of the struggle to maintain the independence of culture under… Read More
An ageless woman sits on stage surrounded by half-filled glasses of exotic fruit juices and a cosy flat interior. The story she is here to tell us is one that… Read More
Published: 27 May 2009
Daniela Nardini has joined the previously announced Rachel Weisz, Ruth Wilson, Barnaby Kay, Elliot Cowan and Jack Ashton in the forthcoming Donmar Warehouse production of A Streetcar Named Desire.The full… Read More
Over 1,700 people attended the Society of London Theatre’s (SOLT) first ever West End Family Fun Day at the Royal Festival Hall yesterday, marking a huge success for the free… Read More
Sally Ann Triplett, Norman Bowman and Niamh Perry are to join the cast of Mamma Mia! at the Prince of Wales theatre on 15 June. Triplett, who takes over from… Read More
Acclaimed actress Clare Higgins tells Caroline Bishop about the joy of the stage and the demise of the screen.“I don’t understand the term ‘problem play’, I never have,” says Clare… Read More
Aspiring opera stars are being given the chance to perform live to a packed Trafalgar Square as part of the Royal Opera’s BP Summer Big Screens.The Royal Opera has launched… Read More
‘Gated communities’ are new to me. The idea of locking yourself away in a self-contained complex separated from the rest of the world, protected from the hideous reality of life… Read More
Published: 26 May 2009
Former Destiny’s Child singer Michelle Williams is to follow fellow American Jerry Springer in the cast of Chicago this summer.The US star will make her UK stage debut in the… Read More
Published: 22 May 2009
Trevor Nunn’s revival of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music has extended its run at the Garrick theatre until 5 September ahead of an intended Broadway transfer. The production originated… Read More
Philip Larkin may have said it most succinctly in This Be The Verse: “They f**k you up your Mum and Dad / they may not mean to but they do”.… Read More
Published: 21 May 2009
A new web-based event is offering budding young stage stars the chance to learn from professionals. Young Performer Week, held from 8 to 14 June, allows young people interested in… Read More
Matt Charman is fast developing into a playwright of some repute. The winner of the Verity Bargate Award in 2005, his third play, The Observer, balances huge political and philosophical… Read More
Published: 20 May 2009
A host of London’s hottest musicals will be bringing free entertainment to Leicester Square this summer as part of West End LIVE.The two-day event, which runs on 20 and 21… Read More
The former sitcom star talks to Matthew Amer about new show Amongst Friends and trying to change audiences’ perceptions of him. The power of television on perception really can’t be… Read More
Stage and screen star John Barrowman is to return to the West End this autumn, donning the stunning sparkling dresses of Albin in musical comedy La Cage Aux Folles.Barrowman will… Read More
Renowned circus performers Jean Baptiste Thierrée and Victoria Chaplin are to bring their cult show Le Cirque Invisible to the Southbank Centre this summer. Last performed in the UK in… Read More
Stephen Daldry’s 1992 National Theatre production of JB Priestley’s An Inspector Calls is to return to London this autumn for an eight-week season at the Novello theatre from 22 September… Read More
Shout!, the 60s jukebox musical currently playing at the Arts theatre, is to close on 31 May.The self-proclaimed ‘Grooviest Show In Town’, which stars Su Pollard, Tiffany Graves, Shona White… Read More