2,436 stories by "Michael Billington"
Chichester Festival TheatreThe title song is terrific. The brolly-brandishing Adam Cooper splashes about in the rain with infectiously childish glee. Indeed, the effect is so good that the w…
Minerva, ChichesterIt would be nice to think that Caryl Churchill's 1982 play, written during the rise of Thatcherism, now looks dated. In fact, it seems terrifyingly topical in its portrait…
Royal Court, LondonAs she proved in Eigengrau at the Bush, Penelope Skinner is preoccupied by sex. She writes about it with a candour that is both entertaining and fiercely erotic. But, havi…
Old Vic, LondonThere are basically two ways of presenting Richard III: as the culmination of a cycle or as a standalone drama. And, although I think it only makes total sense when seen in th…
Regent's Park, LondonLucy Bailey has had a bold and radical idea: to stage John Gay's 1728 ballad opera in its original period. This makes sense, since the piece was both an attack on Sir Ro…
Soho Theatre UpstairsLou Ramsden is a young writer with a message to convey: that we live in a self-obsessed society that marginalises and even exploits people with learning difficulties. Th…
One of my favourite festivals is the tiny but perfectly formed Galway theatre festival " and this year's instalment promises to be as brilliant (and boozy) as everWhat makes for a good arts …
Southwark Playhouse, LondonYou can see why Odön von Horváth's savagely laconic play has been revived. Set in Munich in 1932, it deals with a world in which money is tight, jobs are scarc…
Trafalgar Studios, LondonWe've had some fine one-man shows about Shakespeare from John Gielgud, Ian McKellen and Michael Pennington. But Simon Callow's is among the very best, partly because…
Trafalgar Studio, LondonWomen are currently making the running in the new writing stakes. Confirmation comes with the transfer from Hampstead Downstairs to the West End of this play from Mor…
Vaudeville, LondonIn the heyday of variety and vaudeville, eccentric jugglers, dancers and musicians would be one item on a gloriously mixed bill. Now what were once known as "speciality act…
The Old Shepherd's Bush Library, LondonThis is like a jolly house-warming before the new occupants have fully moved in. The Bush theatre has temporarily taken over the three-storey building …
Comedy Theatre, LondonHaving rubbished Harold Pinter's Betrayal on its appearance in 1978, I seem to have spent much of my life discovering its complexities. Each production yields fresh ins…
Gielgud, LondonFirst-rate musical farces, with the signal exception of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, are rare for one obvious reason: the songs tend to hold up the action. …
Olivier, LondonIbsen's enormous double-drama has had to bide its time: written between 1868 and 1873, it is only now receiving its British stage premiere, in Jonathan Kent's stunning staging…
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, LondonOnce upon a time musicals drew their inspiration from books, plays or even real life; now they seem to be based on animated movies. But, although Shrek stems…
Little Angel, LondonProspero, at the end of The Tempest, promises to break his staff and "bury it certain fathoms in the earth." Clearly he didn't make a very good job of it since, in Michae…
Donmar Warehouse, LondonMichael Grandage, with his revivals of Don Carlos and Mary Stuart, has made Schiller sexy. Now he and translator Mike Poulton turn their attention to this earlier 178…
Jerusalem and War Horse triumphed at this week's Tony awards. What a great night for subsidised British theatreWhere would Broadway be without the British taxpayer? I ask because it always s…
Young Vic, LondonThere are, broadly speaking, two possible approaches to Gogol's classic 1836 comedy. Treat it as a realistic satire on provincial corruption or as a wild fantasy. Given his …
New Diorama, LondonFact or fiction: which is the best way to deal with the issues raised by the Baha Mousa inquiry into the death of an Iraqi civilian in army custody? Coming hot on the heel…
Royal Court, LondonEither because of a paucity of good new plays or an urge to rediscover the recent past, this is proving to be a summer of revivals. Now it is the turn of Arnold Wesker, wh…
Tricycle Theatre, LondonVerbatim theatre is at its best the closest it comes to the condition of classical drama. That was certainly true of one of the Tricycle's most famous tribunal plays,…
Duchess, LondonSeeing Simon Gray's play revived in the West End, after a gap of 40 years, induces a feeling of nostalgia. Despite how much one may have mocked the commercial theatre of the p…
Orange Tree, RichmondKenneth Tynan first had the bright idea of staging a trio of mid-Victorian farces by the forgotten John Maddison Morton, claiming he is "better than Feydeau". A single M…
