2,444 stories by "Michael Billington"
Lyric, HammersmithJeremy Dyson, who co-wrote the Lyric's long-running Ghost Stories, has now adapted five of Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected. The result is something of a mixed bag. One…
Jermyn Street, LondonYou don't expect to find a Rattigan "world premiere" in the dramatist's centenary year. In fact, this is the original version of a play produced in 1944 under the title …
Noel Coward, LondonSponsored by Roman Abramovich, Moscow's Sovremennik Theatre arrived in London for a brief nine-day residence. The largely Russian-speaking first-night audience also greete…
Almeida LondonThe Almeida has a strong track-record in producing American plays. And it was of one of its favoured sons, Neil LaBute, that I was reminded watching this astute, acerbic and ri…
Hampstead Theatre, LondonWith the NHS facing its biggest revolution in 60 years, now is the time for a play about the realities of hospital life. But, while Nina Raine follows up her Tribes …
Cottesloe, National TheatreThis is Peter Hall's fourth production of Shakespeare's most beautiful, opal-like comedy. And, even if it cannot efface golden memories of the one he did at Stratf…
White Bear, LondonThe textbooks all tell us that postwar British theatre, prior to the Royal Court revolution of the mid-1950s, was as arid as the Gobi desert. But a popular myth, lately den…
Bush, LondonThere is a long line of plays about educational no-hopers, from Barry Reckord's Skyvers to Nigel Williams's Class Enemy. While John Donnelly's new play, which kicks off a Bush sc…
Rose, KingstonShakespeare's sonnets can be read in any number of ways: as literary exercise, autobiographical narrative or anatomy of love. Peter Brook clearly leans towards the last. In thi…
Arcola, LondonThe Arcola has moved to inviting new premises: a converted paint factory in Dalston whose colour blocks were made famous by Turner and Constable and that, with its brick walls …
Star of Tom Jones and They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, she defied typecastingSusannah York, who has died aged 72, was a vibrant, energetic personality with a devouring passion for work, stron…
Cock Tavern, LondonPau Miró's play has been a big hit in its native Catalonia but it's not immediately easy to see why. What it offers, in the course of 80 minutes, is a faintly louche va…
Orange Tree, RichmondStudents of French farce can have a field day with this one. Written in 1875 by Alfred Hennequin and Alfred Delacour, and here niftily translated by Reggie Oliver, it pr…
Roundhouse, LondonI was tickled by the Observer's recent, inadvertent description of a malt whisky as "a genuine classic which never fails to disappoint". I've always felt that Julius Caesar…
Theatro Technis, LondonAs a famed singer and actor persecuted for his radical politics and civil-rights campaigning, Paul Robeson has the dimensions of an American tragic hero. And, even if …
Finborough, LondonAs a novelist, Graham Greene was prepared to experiment: as a dramatist, he was trapped in the conventions of the well-made West End play. That, at least, is the conclusion…
Royal Albert Hall, LondonCirque du Soleil is often accused of a soulless efficiency. So it must have seemed a bright idea to get Robert Lepage (who also hails from Quebec, where the circus s…
Riverside Studios, LondonWho would have thought it? One of the strongest theatrical survivors of the mid-1950s turns out to be this whimsical musical by Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds abo…
Little Angel, LondonYou don't, of course, get the whole of Alice in Tim Kane's 90-minute puppet version: no caucus-race, no croquet-mallet flamingos and " perhaps rightly, as the show is aim…
The plot is thin, the musical numbers bland " but Julie Taymor's production remains kaleidoscopically brilliantI may not be the ideal person to explain the enduring appeal of The Lion King. …
Which playwright was banned in Dudley for discrimination? Who handbagged the Queen? Put your theatrical knowledge to the testMichael Billington
Which playwright was banned in Dudley for discrimination? Who handbagged the Queen? Test your theatrical knowledge on the year just gone here Continue reading...
Michael Billington thinks Terence Rattigan is well worth revisiting in his centenary year, and selects the best of the rest of the year's theatreCentenaries offer a great chance for re-asses…
Roundhouse, London"A sad tale's best for winter," says the boy Mamilius; and, possibly because of the season of the year, I became unusually aware of the fairytale elements in Shakespeare's …
The absurdity of comparing the living with the dead, plus the changing nature of acting 'greatness', means polls like the one carried out by the Stage are little more than a marketing exerci…
