John Osborne's classic allegory The Entertainer is back. But the UK is now so fragmented that no modern playwright could pen a drama to sum up who we areKenneth Branagh, whose career has oft…
Screenwriters often find themselves in a straitjacket " but comedy shows written for the theatre have free rein to be as foul-mouthed and foul-minded as they like. The world needs more of it…
From the Brexit vote to the US presidential race, the tumult of the year's news shows how nimble " or lucky " artists need to be to stay relevantMost would agree that timing is vital to the …
As previews of the West End show reveal its gasp-inducing illusions, hanky-inducing scenes and Harry as a 40-year-old dad, the producers behind the darkest ever Potter project discuss secrec…
As she prepares to appear in the Young Chekhov trilogy, the star of Last Tango in Halifax and W1A talks about playing outsiders, growing up surrounded by white faces " and how it feels to be…
A lifetime achievement in musical theatre acknowledges Lansbury's prolific career spanning seven decadesPeople like to pass landmark birthdays in meaningful places, so it seems right that Da…
Life with Father, about a sexist patriarch and submissive wife, holds the record for the longest-running non-musical play in New York. Now, 75 years after it premiered, Mark Lawson…
Minerva, ChichesterMark Hayhurst's play about a court-martialled first world war soldier is sharply intelligent and emotionally joltingThe canon of first world war drama is already vast. Mar…
With gift for solitude, and dialogue, prolific award-winning scriptwriter is unusually natural collaborator for Harry Potter playTelevision and theatre playwrights who spend a lot of time al…
Wales Millennium Centre, CardiffThe singer has co-authored a fascinating update on Hans Christian Andersen, pitting her sea nymph against marine pollution and malign capitalismWhile church m…
The playwright was a commercial success, but his works could only have been created in subsidised venuesPeter Shaffer obituaryFew writers achieve the lucrative double of writing an internati…
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonAoife Duffin is an electrifying Kate in Caroline Byrne's splendid Irish version, which injects touches of Yeats, Wilde and Beckett Shakespeare's comedy of Petruchi…
St James theatre, LondonAn attempt to adapt the Oscar-winning film for the stage cannot disguise its origins sufficiently enough to work as theatreIgnoring the biblical warning against putti…
Criterion, LondonThis thrillingly inventive piece about bed-hopping gem thieves is a slapstick delightThe financial prospects of young actors are probably only studied by economists as a hor…
Revivals from Arnold Wesker's heyday prove the enduring quality of his work, where autobiographical detail went hand in hand with experimental stagecraftCelebrated playwrights often seem to …
With a sexually confused Putin and a Bond villain Blair, Corbyn the Musical has some pretty broad caricatures " but it's even-handed in its politics. And it's not the first musical to take o…
Victoria Palace Theatre, London Director Stephen Daldry made amusing artistic virtue of legal necessity and Sir Elton John savoured the show's success Even before sampling the refreshments a…
Dench deserved to break records for her psychologically probing in turn The Winter's Tale, and Rufus Norris saw his vision for the National Theatre validated. But the Oliviers still need to …
On May 8 1956, John Osborne's Look Back in Anger premiered at the Royal Court in London. It shocked the theatre world, some acclaiming it as the voice of a new generation, others damning it …
The storyline is contrived around a string of pop hits in this homage to the photo-stories and problem pages of the classic teenage girls' magazine Aimed at a largely female audience with o…
Moving The Maids from France to the US adds a powerful racial subtext to Genet's original, while Anouilh's Welcome Home, Captain Fox! fares less well when set in America. Not all plays benef…
In 400 years since his death, only a few playwrights " including George Bernard Shaw and Edward Bond " have turned the Bard into a characterThe 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death is be…
Denise Gough has been horrifying audiences " and scoring rave reviews " for her portrayal of an addict in People, Places and Things. The Irish actor talks about being one of 11 siblings, sno…
David Peace's modern classic The Damned United is being staged in Leeds, a city with no great love for its subject: charismatic, alcoholic football manager Brian Clough. Mark Lawson on the f…
Best actor nomination for Farinelli and the King comes hours after winning Academy Award for best supporting actorThe "double O" category in Britain has traditionally been associated with Ja…