5,330 stories from The Independent
It is a brave writer who takes liberties with a Shakespeare script, let alone re-writes the ending. But the rich rewards of such risks are to be found in the improbable setting of a municipa…
Jermyn Street Theatre is partial to rummaging for rarities in the back catalogue of great dramatists. Well, they don't come much rarer than this " the UK premiere, no less, of St John's Nigh…
Matthew Bourne's Play Without Words tells a story in body language. His swinging sixties characters play out sexual power games in the tilt of a head, the shift of stance. When a dancer move…
Hattie Morahan's Nora is playing hide-and-seek. Her little boys have scampered away down the corridor in Ibsen's domestic drama A Doll's House, as staged by Carrie Cracknell. Morahan is pret…
You don't expect dancing on the street in Britain. That's a sight for Rio, or Havana, or southern Europe if you're lucky. This writer once chanced upon real, spontaneous flamenco, if decided…
One of the longest-running West End musicals, Chicago, will bring down the final curtain in the autumn as its producers look to leave the stage with their "heads held high".
Simon Russell Beale is sitting squatly in a spillage of rank refuse " discarded take-away cartons, crushed cans, exhausted pill-packets et al " on the revolve in the National Theatre's huge …
Long-running West End show Chicago - which has featured an array of star names - is to close after nearly 15 years.
Programmes were not distributed until after the show, but you were handed a single sheet of white paper, blank except for one typed word " mine, somewhat dispiritingly, was "sock" " as you m…
The phrase "a play by Don DeLillo" doesn't trip off the tongue quite like "a play by William Shakespeare" or, even, "a novel by Don DeLillo". "I think of myself as a novelist first, always,"…
As she settled into the rhythm of her aria, Julia Riley, singing Dorabella in our current production of Cosà fan tutte, felt something scramble on to her hand. With a thousand people hang…
A birthday, a wedding, a holiday: these are the sunny-seeming components of the final mixed bill devised by Monica Mason for the Royal Ballet before she retires. Yet in two of the three work…
Beset by men of massive ego and little brain, Katherina aka Katharine bestrides both the dramatic and the musical stage in new productions of The Taming of the Shrew and Kiss Me Kate, and th…
Looking for a summer break you won't forget in a hurry? How about spending the weekend screaming and running through a Lancashire campsite at the UK's first "immersive horror" holiday?
It is January 2012 and I'm sitting on the pavement of a Cairo side street in the afternoon sun. At the far end of the road is a monolithic concrete roadblock, beyond which is Tahrir Square.
The actor Mark Rylance has withdrawn from performing at the Olympic opening ceremony following the sudden death of his step-daughter.
"You looked confused at some points," amiably admits Paul Heaton after overseeing his confusing and long-winded soul opera, The 8th.
What might have proved a ground-breaking collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Mexico proves instead to be a lost opportunity at forging a South Ame…
Almost 50 theatres in Britain teeter on the brink of closure, and a leading preservation group has urged developers and local councils to step in and save them
London theatregoers are paying an average of £37.97 for their tickets, according to research.
New English Ballet Theatre is an idealistic venture, a showcase company for young dancers and aspiring choreographers. It has influential patrons, including ballerinas Darcey Bussell and Mar…
Shobana Jeyasingh's latest work was created to be danced in churches, with an international tour taking it to church buildings from Venice to Stockholm. The free event is performed entirely …
Sir Arthur Wing Pinero's 1887 comedy has been given a wide berth by directors - it was last staged in the West End in 1973 - and its author largely forgotten. Pinero was celebrated at his pe…
The Royal Ballet's new triple bill starts out frilly and ends up elemental: from the playful display of Birthday Offering to the thundering power of Les Noces, with the romantic drama of A M…
Lisa and Ed are expecting their second child. Actually, Ed is the expectant one: in Joe Penhall's taut new comedy, career-minded mums may keep their jobs while willing fathers carry the baby…
