Clowns might be getting a bad press just now, but clowning has long been an essential part of British theatre traditionEverybody loves to hate a clown, and news of sightings of clowns on str…
Obscure language in show descriptions and reviews prevents us from opening the conversation to everyoneI was browsing through the programme of an international festival recently. The visuals…
Park theatre, LondonDavid Spicer's humorous play about animal rights boasts deft one-liners and giant amphibians, but it ends up down a dramatic cul-de-sacMartha is dead but no longer buried…
Drum, PlymouthIt's not often that you hear mass sobbing in the theatre, but it's all sniffles during the latter stages of this new Frantic Assembly show. It's hardly surprising: Abi Morgan's…
Escaped Alone returns, Gary Barlow opens his musical The Girls, Vault and Manipulate add to the festival fare and The White Devil walks againOwen Sheers's Pink Mist, about three lads who joi…
Park theatre, LondonRobert Holman's play confronts the big existential questions with a graceful simplicityOtto is an anxious, ageing vicar so lonely that he talks to walls and touches…
The London international festival of theatre draws great " and brave " talents from around the globe but the staff also deserve applause for this mammoth eventDuring the 2012 London internat…
Print Room at the Coronet, LondonA failed poet presides over a bottomless well in a production of Howard Barker's play that has drawn fire for its lack of east Asian actorsArt does not exist…
A new verbatim theatre piece stars teachers, consultants and cleaners who have all earned a living through the sex trade. The creators, including a dominatrix, discuss a show that's about lo…
The Pit, LondonMachetes fly as Sacékripa's skilful two-hander for the London international mime festival brings lethal clumsiness and passive aggression to the Barbican A lovely, low-key sh…
Greenwich theatre, London Misfit teen Martin goes in search of his absent father and his pop idol in a sharply observed, compelling one-man showThose unacquainted with the lyrics to David Bo…
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonLucy Bailey's returning revival of this vicious, bloody tragedy is still ingeniously disturbing, and much more than just a splatter festNasty, but oh so very, very…
Theatre has often depicted women subjected to degradation but context is key. The appalling final scene in the NT's production made me see the play anewWe all know that British theatre still…
The Bunker, LondonWhen the relationship depicted in Fiona Doyle's fractured-chronology drama falls apart, it's left to the audience to pick up the piecesWoman in her 20s meets man in his 40s…
Old Red Lion, London The laughs keep coming in David K Barnes' play about a party where awkward small talk descends into a drunken debate about personal desiresDiane (EJ Martin) is nervous w…
Us/Them dramatises the Beslan massacre, the London international mime festival has lots to shout about, and Theatre503 invites Neil LaBute, Caryl Churchill, Roy Williams and more to respond …
Park theatre, LondonA man tries to sell a dead eagle on the black market in a laboured comedy that, despite all the metaphors, has little to say about contemporary AmericaWhen Spider (Charli…
Trampolines, smashed crockery, ghostly goings-on … the annual gala of physical theatre shows no sign of slowing downAt Central St Martins' Platform theatre, two men " maybe brothers but po…
As funding for the arts looks increasingly uncertain, the challenge for theatres is to find the right financial model to secure their futureLast year, I visited a regional theatre whose work…
Beslan's 2004 school siege, in which more than 300 people died, is the subject of a playful, comic and desperately moving piece for young audiences'I'm always up for a bit of a challenge," s…
Jermyn Street theatre, LondonTom Jacobson's two-hander takes a situation heavy with dramatic promise " the entrapment of gay men in 1914 America " and sacrifices it to metatheatre In 1914, C…
London's International Mime festival throws up some special treats including Gandini Juggling's Smashed, and Cinderella is still having a ball in BoltonThe London International Mime festival…
The outcry over the all-white cast of In the Depths of Dead Love is a sign of shifting attitudes. But the industry still has some way to goThe "yellowface" dispute that blew up just before C…
Soho theatre's pop-up soapbox inspired a raft of brief yet pointed speeches. The project's 2017 tour of London venues couldn't come at a better timeThe downstairs space at Soho theatre in Lo…
Nottingham PlayhouseKhaled Hosseini's bestselling novel spans 30 years, shifts continents, entwines Afghanistan's bloody history with a family saga, and deals with themes of betrayal, guilt …