318 stories from John Morrison
Two courses of what you fancy can be just right. Three courses on the same day can lead to indigestion and exhaustion, however excellent the chef. So I decided to postpone enjoying The Seagu…
As You Like It is a difficult play for a director to ruin completely, but Polly Findlay comes very close. Her new production in the Olivier Theatre leaves no space for the actors, who are 'c…
Long ago in 1930s theatreland, girls were 'fast' and chaps were extremely slow. The fact that sex rarely if ever happened between them can be laid at the door of the English public school sy…
Unlike professional critics, I almost always buy my own tickets for the theatre, though I do get the occasional comp (thank you, Almeida). Even allowing for a personal bias in favour of affo…
Coal. It used to be everywhere. Sticking in the miners' pores, packed in hessian sacks, rattling in the scuttle, sending soot and smoke up every chimney. I still have a couple of hundredweig…
Violence on stage can look phoney; so can promenade performances in derelict buildings. Luckily, neither is the case in this terrifying revival of Barrie Keeffe's play about three young men …
One of the hardest things in theatre is to create a play in which not much happens, and still fully engage the audience. Barney Norris's new play at the Arcola almost gets there, but ultimat…
Medea is the last play of the Almeida's Greek trilogy and unfortunately the least impressive, despite a commanding performance in the central role by Kate Fleetwood. The Oresteia (now at Tra…
Mid-September turned out to be a great time for theatregoing. I saw four excellent plays in less than ten days. Starting with Al Smith's Harrogate at the Hightide Festival in Aldeburgh, I we…
'Have you read much Kierkegaard? Has that question ever been asked in Oldham?' Taking the piss can land you in big trouble. Particularly in Oldham, and particularly in a pub whose landlord u…
The relationship between middle-aged men and their daughters seems to be in the news at the moment, which means that Al Smith's excellent and unsettling new play may turn out to be more topi…
A review in five acts 1. O vkusakh nye sporit' (Don't argue about taste). I was reminded of this old Russian proverb during my August week in Edinburgh when I read a glowing five-star review…
She pouts, she flirts, she lies, she falls in love, she bewitches the men who come near her and deceives herself just as much as her victims. Amanda Drew's scintillating portrayal of Turgene…
There are as many ways of staging this drama by Euripides as there are days in the year. It's a deeply ambiguous play, and the relationship between Dionysus and the audience is the key to th…
My theatre blog is honoured to present a guest review of this production at Southwark Playhouse by Lord Scrawdyke of Huddersfield, better known as Malcolm Scrawdyke MP, one of the architects…
Dominic Dromgoole's farewell production at the Globe goes overboard into slapstick comedy, which overwhelms and disguises the the dark heart of one of Shakespeare's most bitter plays. Before…
This is an exemplary production of one of Shakespeare's most fascinating plays, with a terrific actor (Charles Edwards) playing the doomed king, and a wealth of strong supporting performance…
Visitors to Tate Modern will probably have spotted a classic conceptualist work made in 1973 by Michael Craig-Martin entitled 'An Oak Tree' which consists of a glass of water on a bathroom s…
Does it matter how actors pronounce Russian names when they are acting Chekhov's plays in English? I think it does, and that's not just because I'm a Russian speaker or a pedant (or possibly…
'Who the fuck really cares?' asks one of the five characters in Stephen Adly Guirgis's play. Can't we just get along fine without a sense of right and wrong? The playwright's answer is an em…
Going to see a Shakespeare play for the first time is a rare pleasure, especially when I have never read it and know next to nothing about it. So my trip to Shakespeare's Globe enabled me to…
Here's a question for the next pub quiz. Who was Graeme Knowles and why did he resign? Don't all shout at once. Yes, you, the gentleman in the dog collar -- I thought you might have the righ…
Rupert Goold's promise to 'take the Greeks out of the attic' (pun intended, I think) has got off to a spectacular start at the Almeida. His longtime collaborator Robert Icke, largely respons…
Anyone worried about low productivity in the British economy will be heartened to learn that things are far worse elsewhere. If this play by Pavel Pryazhko at the Soho theatre is telling the…
The vast auditorium of the Olivier theatre isn't always the best place to stage comedy; it relentlessly exposes actors who can't adjust to its demands, and it makes exceptional demands of di…
