2,436 stories by "Michael Billington"
Wilton's Music Hall, LondonEveryone is busy celebrating the quatercentenary of the King James bible. Jonathan Holmes, in this ambitious historical drama, takes a more oblique approach. The y…
Director Deborah Warner's meshing of Sheridan's 18th-century comedy of manners with modern culture proves some classics are best left as they areIt's good to find Deborah Warner responding t…
Wyndham's Theatre, LondonArt is not a competition. Since, however, this is the second Much Ado in five days, comparisons are inevitable. And, while Jeremy Herrin's version at Shakespeare's G…
Chichester Festival TheatreTrevor Nunn's fine production of Tom Stoppard's 1966 play begins with a striking image: the two heroes seen against the stark background of a leafless tree. The Be…
Riverside Studios, LondonLondon is finally catching up on Alan Ayckbourn's ghost stories. After the all-female Snake in the Grass (2002), we now get the metropolitan debut of its 1994 all-ma…
Globe, LondonOn a chill, damp night Jeremy Herrin's production, pre-empting next week's West End version (starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate) conquered its audience. But, although Her…
Garrick, LondonLast year in Chichester I found Philip Prowse's production of Shaw's indestructible play coarse and overstated. If it has improved, it is partly because it fits more snugly in…
Lyttelton, LondonIn 1746, Carlo Goldoni wrote a classic comedy normally translated as The Servant of Two Masters. Richard Bean has used it for a riotous farce combining the original's struct…
Royal Court, LondonThe second play, they say, is the hardest. But Anya Reiss more than fulfils the promise she showed last year, as an 18-year-old, with Spur of the Moment. Even if this new …
Originally published in the Guardian on 23 May 1980Written, composed and directed by Ernest Maxin (to whom we raise our hatchets), Barnardo at the Royalty is everything one expects a British…
Barbican, LondonI fear that the great tradition of English artificial comedy, written mainly by Irishmen and running from the Restoration to Oscar Wilde, is in danger. Either we neglect it o…
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-on-AvonWhat to do with this endlessly problematic play? Directors such as Peter Zadek and David Thacker set it in the stock exchange. But Rupert Goold, a…
Hampstead, LondonFilter is an experimental company famed for its sonic virtuosity: David Farr is a writer/director with the language-driven RSC. So there is a certain irony in seeing them wo…
Olivier Theatre, LondonGiven Howard Davies's brilliant productions of Bulgakov and Gorky, I had perhaps extravagantly high hopes for his rare excursion into Chekhov. But, while this producti…
Nottingham PlayhouseIbsen fanciers are in seventh heaven. In advance of the National's Emperor and Galilean, we get the British professional premiere of this 1869 prose comedy, although I di…
Nuffield, SouthamptonHaving produced two series of live drama for Sky Arts, Sandi Toksvig has now written her own play about postwar trauma. The result, belying Toksvig's familiar comic pers…
Almeida, LondonWhich is Edward Albee's best play? I'd plump for this one. Written in 1966, it may not have the emotional extravagance of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but it has a greater …
Stratford-upon-AvonIt is always good to see The Swan, conceived as a venue for non-Shakespearean classics, reverting to its original purpose. But, much as I enjoyed this rare revival of Phil…
Young Vic, LondonYou can't beat a pre-emptive strike. Both Jon Fosse and Patrice Chereau, the Norwegian author and French director of this strange piece, have said in advance they expect to …
Orange Tree, London"It's been a strange evening," says a character at the end of Lars Noren's play. That seems an understatement for a work in which a family dinner party turns into a psycho…
The Cut, Halesworth, SuffolkGiven that Andrew Motion is a poet, novelist and biographer, it's surprising it has taken him so long to get round to writing a play. But, prompted by an invitati…
Globe, LondonThis is a good, clear, well-spoken production by John Dove of one of Shakespeare's most beguiling but least-loved plays. All it misses, for reasons that may not be entirely its …
Academia should be a bastion of intellectual freedom, but this retraction shows writers are expected to keep the status quoPlaywrights who speak out often suffer a backlash. It happened to H…
The Print Room, LondonNo one would claim that this rarely seen work is vintage Tennessee Williams. But, though savaged by the New York critics in 1968 and palpably self-plagiarising, it has …
Trafalgar Studios, LondonDarren Murphy is clearly a generous man. We go to the theatre expecting one play and he gives us at least three: a psychological study of sibling rivalry, a social p…
