2,436 stories by "Michael Billington"
Arcola, LondonGreg Hicks is hilarious as a demonic newspaper editor in Mark Jagasia's scorching satire on the anti-immigration rhetoric infecting parts of Fleet Street Continue reading...
From the archive: The first night review, published on 23 September 1998, for The Blue Room, David Hare's version of Schnitzler's erotic masterpiece La Ronde at the Donmar Warehouse Continue…
Young Vic, LondonThe American playwright's nostalgic look at middle-class life gets a visually seductive revivalEugene O'Neill wrote expressionist plays such as The Hairy Ape and Dynamo. He …
This first major production of Ford's play since the 1630s makes conspicuous the work's debt to Shakespeare, but finally looks forward to Restoration comedy Continue reading...
Royal Court, LondonMichael Wynne's ingenious verbatim drama is zealously researched but lacks polemical punchHow do you dramatise a subject like the NHS? In this 90-minute play, Michael Wynn…
In Peter Hall's 1987 National Theatre production, Dench took Shakespeare's character and re-created it from her own personality and imaginationIn the case of Judi Dench, one is confronted by…
Simon Stephens's extraordinary and haunting new play peoples the Carmen story with vivid, isolated characters from our modern urban world Continue reading...
Soho theatre, LondonOwen McCafferty's play is an oversimplified morality tale, but the acting is first-rate and it packs a lot into 80 minutes Continue reading...
Savoy theatre, LondonEverything's coming up roses for this Chichester transfer of the Sondheim show about a starstruck mum who steers her children into showbizJonathan Kent's production of t…
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, LondonThe immersive theatre stalwarts load this family show with nautical atmosphere and gizmos, but there's too little dangerPunchdrunk are famous for a…
Royal Court, LondonEnda Walsh has invented a new cast of fairground misfits to stretch Dahl's tale for the stage, but the titular couple are still the funniest thing in this anarchic farce C…
As Johnny 'Rooster' Byron, Rylance transformed himself into a strutting, muscular figure in Jez Butterworth's haunting study of a changing England Continue reading...
Soho theatre, LondonAnders Lustgarten's drama boldly contrasts the lives of a fisherman retrieving the bodies of refugees drowned at sea and a Chinese-British woman who collects debts for a …
Tricycle, LondonAs an 81-year-old artist announces that she plans to kill herself, April de Angelis asks: is old age a curse from which we are entitled to escape? Continue reading...
Royal and Derngate, NorthamptonNigel Barrett makes for a virile, athletic protagonist in this deeply moving, stripped-down version of Rostand's classic Continue reading...
Park theatre, LondonJonathan Maitland's take on Geoffrey Howe's ferocious resignation speech shows the enmity inside Thatcher's government Continue reading...
In our new series, Michael Billington picks 10 theatrical performances that have etched themselves on his memory. The list begins with Olivier as John Osborne's Archie RiceEvery time I invok…
Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonGregory Doran's Arthur Miller production skilfully contrasts a bitter old man with his dapper younger self, as Harriet Walter touchingly reveals…
Coliseum, LondonStephen Sondheim's bloodstained musical about the demon barber gets an adventurous outing at ENO First seen in New York in 2014, this semi-staged version of Stephen Sondheim'…
Finborough, LondonTom Taylor's protagonist packs a punch in this sometimes heavy-handed comic melodrama that Abraham Lincoln was watching on the night he was assassinated"And how did you enj…
Jimmy Porter takes on class, religion, politics and the press in Osborne's classic 1956 play " but its real revolution lay in its thrilling linguistic exuberanceIn the summer of 1955 an adve…
Swan, StratfordJasper Britton gives a robust performance as Marlowe's murderous merchant, but Justin Audibert's production will improve when it fully embraces the play's savagery Continue re…
St James theatre, LondonWilliam Gaminara's farce is inventive and funny and clever, and the cast excel as Prince William, David Cameron and David Beckham steer England's 2018 World Cup bid t…
National Theatre, LondonPersonal crises plunge order into chaos in Sam Holcroft's intelligent and superbly cast yuletide comedy directed by Marianne ElliottSam Holcroft has already made a sh…
Print Room, LondonThis portrayal of two men who struggle to express their feelings for each other has moments of great beauty but is all too restrained Continue reading...
