2,436 stories by "Michael Billington"
Chichester Festival TheatreCole Porter's cosmopolitan chic essentially belonged to the 1930s, but he enjoyed a late, great hit in 1948 with this backstage story: one that shows the battling …
West Yorkshire Playhouse, LeedsI have moaned constantly about the dearth of new musicals but this theatre has certainly done its bit, with shows ranging from Spend Spend Spend! to The Go-Bet…
Bush Theatre, London"What is robbing a bank compared to founding a bank?" asks Brecht in The Threepenny Opera. That idea pervades Dominic Savage's sharp, short theatrical debut. But, althoug…
Finborough, LondonForty years ago, a Toronto company created a devised play by sending a group of actors to live and work on farms in Ontario. That experience, a landmark in Canadian theatre…
Hampstead, LondonSurvivors of Gatz will not shrink at the idea of a nine-hour day spent watching three plays by the great Irish dramatist, Tom Murphy. Garry Hynes, who directs them for Galwa…
Gate, LondonFive years ago Hassan Abdulrazzak caused quite a stir with a debut play, Baghdad Wedding, about life among London's Iraqi exiles. Now at long last comes a second play, The Prophe…
Lyttelton, LondonPlays about the legacy of the 1960s are becoming increasingly common. After Mike Bartlett's Love, Love, Love and Alexi Kaye Campbell's Apologia, we now have this debut from …
Young Vic, LondonAt the curtain call for this show from Belarus Free theatre, a protester shouted that it was "a political provocation". He went on, before clumping noisily out, to declare t…
Noel Coward theatre, LondonI have spent much of my life attacking adaptations. But the glory of this show, created and performed by New York's Elevator Repair Service, is that it is no cut-a…
Menier Chocolate Factory, London Harvey Fierstein's award-winning trilogy has its place in Broadway history, in that in 1982 it showed a gay hero's quest for love and family could achieve po…
Royal Court, LondonVivienne Franzmann scored a deserved success with Mogadishu, which examined self-destructive white liberal guilt in a school setting. Her new play extends the theme to att…
It is Corden's ability to react in the moment while sticking to the comic structure that makes this an award-worthy performanceHaving lost out in the British theatrical awards to the Franken…
Donmar Warehouse, LondonThe social responsibility of the scientist was a hot topic when the Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt wrote this play in 1961: this, after all, was a period when …
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonThis, of all Shakespeare's plays, badly needs a shot in the arm " and it receives a powerful one in this production by Gregory Doran, the RSC's …
Various venues, NorthamptonCivilised order confronts unbridled anarchy in Northampton this summer, where Laurie Sansom has had the imaginative idea of staging a trilogy dubbed Festival of Ch…
A new documentary charts the struggle of Afrikaans playwright Athol Fugard against the violence of apartheid. Michael Billington admires his spiritI have always had slightly mixed feelings a…
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonThe final visiting production in the invigorating Globe to Globe season is a much-travelled Hamlet, dating back to 1997, from Lithuania's Meno Fortas com…
Olivier, LondonWe are at the hub of a modern seat of power. As we hear the whirring sound of a helicopter overhead, frantic desk-wallahs pass urgent messages ever higher up the chain of comm…
Open Air theatre, Regent's Park, LondonThis musical had the misfortune to receive its British premiere on the night in 2003 when America invaded Iraq. Now revived by Timothy Sheader, it…
It's never been a better time to be a young playwright " but are we missing out on older voices?It's a great time to be a young dramatist. Theatres are hungry for your work. The media love t…
Shakespeare's Globe, LondonOne important aspect of the Globe to Globe season is its appeal to expatriate communities. On a hot Saturday afternoon the Globe was packed with Turks, young and o…
Finborough, LondonIt is 10 years since the playwright John McGrath died; 46 since this play was last seen in London. Both the man and his work are honoured in this superb revival by Robert H…
You could easily make up a men's 11 of playwrights passionate about the game and directors, too, are often cricket nuts " so what's the appeal?With the summer game getting into its…
Alan Ayckbourn, a playwright with a remarkable ability to take the national temperature, is reviving his landmark 1972 play to mark its 40th anniversary"It is difficult to find a bright mome…
Almeida, London I find myself wondering what Matthew Dunster's new play is really about. Is it a satire on the perils of TV fame, a study of the fragility of friendship, or a didactic warnin…
