318 stories from John Morrison
What do you need to stage a successful play ? Six actors, six rugby shirts, a rugby ball and a good story, plus an excellent writer and an even more excellent director. It all looks deceptiv…
This excellent production by Jonathan Munby, with Jonathan Pryce as Shylock, couldn't be more different from the last one I saw -- Rupert Goold's hyped-up version set in a Las Vegas casino. …
This is undoubtedly Michelle Terry's show. Whenever she's on stage as Rosalind, you just don't want her to exit. If there's a catalogue of famous Rosalinds whose performances shine on in the…
If Florian Zeller's The Father was just a realistic play about a man with Alzheimer's, it would be well worth seeing for that alone. But there are several other elements in this production a…
I greatly admire James Graham as a playwright, and not just because almost everyone else does. He has the knack of turning really unpromising material into entertaining drama, something he s…
Michael Frayn is the author of Noises Off, the funniest play ever penned by a British dramatist. So Hampstead Theatre no doubt jumped at the chance to put on a selection of his unperformed s…
Any show with John Heffernan in the lead is worth seeing, but despite his excellent performances, this is a play that somehow never quite gets into top gear. Perhaps the ugly surroundings of…
I've been to see seven plays in the last ten days, more through coincidence than deliberate design. In six of those shows I enjoyed what I consider to be the essential quality of drama -- th…
'Happy Fucking Birthday!' they shout as Everyman's friends and hangers-on surround him, whipping up an orgy of shots-and-coke-fuelled celebration. The lights flash and the music is turned up…
Buying theatre tickets long before a show opens isn't an exact science, and sometimes I get it wrong. My biggest mistake recently was not to book ahead for what turned out to be the revival …
Better late than Nether, I suppose. I finally caught up with this play in the last week of its run at the Duke of York's theatre long after it transferred from the Royal Court. Like Mike Bar…
In the hands of Declan Donnellan as director, very little can go wrong. I've been many times to the Barbican and elsewhere to see his Cheek By Jowl company perform Shakespeare, Chekhov and o…
While many theatres are staging election-related plays in the next three weeks, the National Theatre has shown a flash of genius by reviving a work that confronts all the big questions which…
Do any of these headlines ring a bell? HORROR AS IMMIGRANTS BARBECUE LLAMA AT PETTING ZOO WHITES IN MINORITY BY 2020 NOW PAEDOPHILES IN BURQUAS STALK OUR KIDS WHITE SUICIDE BOMBER IN BLACKBU…
Today's reports of hundreds of migrants drowned off the Italian island of Lampedusa lend a horrifying topicality to Anders Lustgarten's new play at the Soho Theatre. But while applauding the…
I'm tempted to call this production at Southwark Playhouse a revival, but it isn't. It's the world premiere of an unperformed play by Michael Hastings, who died in 2011. While the play has o…
This is the most audience-friendly Philip Ridley play that I've seen. That's not because of the subject matter, which is every bit as disturbing as in his other plays; nor has it anything to…
Framing a story on stage can be a way of bridging the gap between performers and audience; but the play-within-the-play, though a very powerful device, can be overdone. Shakespeare's framing…
South Africa's Isango Ensemble delivered the outstanding production of the 'Globe to Globe' international series in 2012 with Venus and Adonis, which they brought back to Shakespeare's Globe…
'They've done away with King Hildebrand!' my companion the Gilbert & Sullivan Expert (GSE) whispered to me in shocked tones as she read the programme at the Finborough Theatre. It was tr…
Multitudes at the Tricycle theatre had its last performance yesterday, and I saw the penultimate show in the afternoon. It's a debut play by actor John Hollingworth, set in Bradford in the n…
I have often complained to my family that our Christmas festivities furnish no worthwhile material for drama. Nary a cross word is exchanged; nobody complains about their presents; no skelet…
It took me a while to tune in to Zinnie Harris's new play at the Royal Court. While I was mesmerised by Maxine Peake's extraordinary performance in the leading role, I was turning the dial t…
I've written before about the 'Donmar Effect' which makes every play staged in this intimate West End venue seem twice as good as it really is. But Closer is a play that's so well written th…
Mike Bartlett's new play at the Almeida is a disorienting and uncomfortable experience in several ways. It's physically claustrophobic for the audience, the visual and auditory experience is…
