2,436 stories by "Michael Billington"
Ustinov Studio, BathIn the early 1730s, a young Welsh music teacher called James Parry had a raging affair with his pupil Mary Powell, a wealthy heiress. He hoped for marriage but was jilted…
Apollo, LondonWhat with contributions from Simon Callow, Michael Pennington and Ian McKellen, the one-person Shakespeare show is a somewhat crowded field. And while Roger Rees, a Royal Shake…
Southwark Playhouse, London"An empty comedy of intrigue without any reality of emotion whatsoever" was the crushing verdict of critic Bonamy Dobrée on this once-popular 1709 play by Susanna…
As a new blue plaque pays tribute to Pinter's Hackney, and Barry Reckord is commemorated in Shepherd's Bush, there has never been a better time to invest in the next generation of writersHow…
Perry Pontac writes: After retiring from the stage in the late 1980s, John Moffatt (obituary, 17 September) largely concentrated on BBC radio drama work. He was incomparable. He appeared in …
Royal Court, LondonCaryl Churchill's new play has 57 scenes, runs 110 minutes and employs 16 actors to play more than 100 characters. Too much information?But one of the many points made by …
Young Vic, LondonTextual tinkering with the classics rarely works. Better to go the whole hog, as Benedict Andrews does in this radical new Three Sisters, which is set in today's Russia, pep…
Old Vic, LondonIbsen's Hedda was once described as a hoop through which every aspiring female actor must jump; and Sheridan Smith performs the feat with commendable ease and agility. But Ann…
Hampstead theatre, LondonWhen David Hare's play was first seen in 1998, it suffered from the miscasting of the central roles of Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie). Now, in Neil Armf…
Almeida, LondonJonathan Pryce is the latest actor to scale Mount Lear and, although it's getting a bit crowded on the summit these days, he gives a striking, individualistic performance in a…
Orange Tree, RichmondSeductive snaps of a semi-nude blonde model adorn the balconies of this intimate theatre. Far from signalling a sudden descent into exploitative sex farce, the…
Theatre 503, LondonTim Roseman and Paul Robinson have enjoyed a fruitful six-year tenure as joint directors of this south London new-writing powerhouse. To mark Roseman's departure they have…
Old Rep, BirminghamShakespeare transcends national frontiers; and in this extraordinary Catalan collage, conceived and directed by the vibrantly experimental director Calixto Bieito, you sen…
Southwark Playhouse, LondonCorneille called this play, written in 1636 when he was barely 30, a "strange monster". Ever since a fabulous Giorgio Strehler production in Paris in 1984, however…
Barbican, LondonI've always thought there's a dodgy brilliance to Carousel. Musically it is far and away the most sophisticated of the Rodgers and Hammerstein operettas, yet lyrically it com…
Finborough, LondonOften pigeonholed as a comfortable, middlebrow dramatist, JB Priestley was in reality a restless experimenter " which may be why this play, although dedicated to and starri…
Vaudeville, London"Let's blow trumpets and squeakers and enjoy the party as much as we can," says Elyot in Private Lives, written in 1930. "I'm tired of the noise you make with your shrill, …
Royal Shakespeare, Statford-upon-AvonThe title gives it away. This is not your standard Shakespeare but a hilarious piece of controlled anarchy that lasts 90 minutes and is directed by Dmitr…
Soho theatre, LondonBack in 1959, Lionel Bart wrote a jaunty musical called Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be that turned Soho into a place of primary-coloured romance. And there is something o…
The stage masters turned what might have been orthodox Olympic rituals into a blast of theatrical vitalityHow do you review an Olympics closing ceremony? I'm not sure you can, especially whe…
'I've seen some woeful off-the-wall Shakespeare, including a Macbeth with Mark Rylance and Jane Horrocks where the sleepwalking Lady M peed on stage'Critics, like actors, need to avoid typec…
Hangar 858, RAF St Athan, Vale of GlamorganTwo summers ago, National Theatre Wales stunned us with a version of Aeschylus's The Persians set in a military training camp. Now the same directo…
Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon Continue reading...
Swan, Stratford-upon-AvonOn paper, it looked an intriguing prospect. In reality, the union of New York's experimental Wooster Group and the RSC on this cynic's Iliad proves strangely inferti…
Theatre Royal, BathTerry Johnson's dazzlingly original play reminds us that farce can be a vehicle for ideas. Even if the piece has lost some of its shock value since it was first seen at th…
