2,878 stories by "Lyn Gardner"
There are many shows in this year's programme that I'd take a punt on, but here are my first thoughts on the shows to get in early forAnybody predicting that the 2012 Edinburgh fringe will t…
Peacock, LondonYou could translate "wah! wah!" " how some Indian audiences express their pleasure at a performance " as "bravo!". Sadly, there's far more woe than wah in this feeble attempt …
London WondergroundHomespun but disconcertingly disturbing, low-key yet highly charged, Cantina is an Australian circus show that reaches the parts La Clique and La Soirée have previously t…
What's the best training a director can have for Sophocles's visceral Antigone? Working with Derren Brown, of course.Plenty of us have long thought that the National theatre bears a resembla…
Barbican, LondonOnce seen, never forgotten: when Japanese director Yukio Ninagawa's cherry-blossom Macbeth visited London in 1987, it opened our eyes to what can happen when east meets west.…
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonThe final image of this production by Israeli company Habima is a stark one. Small and crushed, as if weighed down by history itself, Jacob Cohen's broken Shylock …
Southwark Playhouse, LondonWhen Charles Byrne arrived in Georgian London, his height " 7ft 7in " made him the next big thing. But it wasn't just the public who paid to see "the Irish giant" …
Why the most awful protagonists often make the most interesting characters. Plus the musical version of An Officer and a Gentleman Geres up for a fightAn Officer and an Ungentlemanly rowA li…
Don't miss Two's Company, Harrogate's perfectly formed festival of small. Or get competitive in Sheffield with LeanerFasterStrongerScotland and Northern IrelandLet's start in Glasgow at the …
Young Vic, LondonThere is something curiously disquieting about a show that piles on the charm as it tells us about a man who hounds his unfaithful wife with his mental cruelty. An English-l…
Sheffield CrucibleIn every beginning lurk the seeds of an ending. Harold Pinter's 1978 play, inspired by his own affair with Joan Bakewell, starts with ex-lovers meeting two years after thei…
Southwark Playhouse, LondonHell on earth is currently to be found in Southwark Playhouse, where director Kate Budgen makes her mark with a feverish and visually arresting revival of Eugene O…
Artists are grateful for any money they can get, but too often the project is squeezed to fit the funding available " not the other way aroundHow much money do you need to make your next sho…
Roundhouse, LondonRichard, Duke of Gloucester, is wearing a boar's head. He struts across the steeply raked stage, a sinister figure who you wouldn't want to meet in the forest on a dark nig…
Simon Stephens's play has stirred up a hornets' nest of debate about how critics approach radical work. Plus an early taste of this year's Edinburgh festivalGetting criticalIt felt as if som…
Oval House, LondonWill learning to say "Haargh" very loudly like a pirate further the cause of feminism? The creators of this playful oddity clearly think it's a step in the right direction …
Drop everything for Three Kingdoms at the Lyric Hammersmith in London and get Smashed with Gandini Juggling in BrightonScotlandATC's double bill of Sarah Kane's Crave and Ivan Viripaev's Ill…
Point, EastleighSarah Kane's Crave and Illusions by the Russian playwright Ivan Viripaev are both compelling texts. But put them side by side " as director Ramin Gray does in this double bil…
Print Room, London"Don't box me in" is the cry of many lovers, but it takes on new meaning in this fascinating but insufficiently meaty piece from Opera Erratica. The show puts a modern twis…
The mindblowing view from Cornwall's Minack and the intimacy of Bristol's Tobacco Factory make for some of my favourite haunts. Which are your perfect playhouses?There's been an outbreak of …
Babel's producers talk their way out of a tight corner, the loss of support for public subsidy " plus is political theatre really a total waste of time?Babble around BabelBabel, the centrepi…
Does sleeping in mid-air make your dreams more exciting? Lyn Gardner joins a surreal project in the Norfolk woodsOn a rainy night last week, I climbed gingerly up a ladder and stepped …
With the Donmar also run by a woman for the first time, Featherstone's tenure may signal a change of cultureNews that Vicky Featherstone has been appointed to succeed Dominic Cooke as the ar…
Caledonian Park, London"Today's the day," whispers a woman urgently. "We're building a new city. Follow the path." We do as we are told. A woman irons in a tree, a man plays a piano under a …
Dreamthinkspeak's 'meditation on Hamlet' triumphs at the Brighton festival and there's a last chance to see Swallows and Amazons in CardiffNorth and WalesPhilip Ridley's Tender Napalm heads …
