318 stories from John Morrison
Farinelli and the King is a delicious 18th century confection of words and music that provides a perfect vehicle for Mark Rylance's first appearance on the candlelit stage of the Sam Wanamak…
This is a very sharp satire on the world of television by Dan Davies, whose play Is Anything Broken? wowed audiences at Player-Playwrights a couple of years ago and went on to the Camden Fri…
What would I do if a Russian bank offered to part-fund a play of mine set in Russia, as part of a London-Moscow theatre festival? If I were to refuse the funding, it might mean none of the a…
This 90-minute stage production at the Young Vic, coming to a close this weekend, has bowled over just about everyone who has seen it, including those like me who are discovering 1927's work…
Brain scientists will love Tom Stoppard's new play, and it's a feast of ideas for the intellectually curious. But in dramatic terms it's a disappointment. Seeing Stoppard's first hit Rosencr…
Dominic Dromgoole's production of The Changeling in the Sam Wanamaker theatre has the same power and intimacy as his version of The Duchess of Malfi a year ago. It's a robust, though fairly …
Yes, I'm all shook up. Rupert Goold's Las Vegas-themed production of the Merchant won't appeal to people who disapprove of Elvis, but I loved it. I found it one of the most entertaining nigh…
Post-war vintage cars like the Ford Popular and Austin A30 have a certain appeal to motorists jaded with more contemporary models, but you wouldn't want to drive one every day. Emlyn William…
Well, it didn't work for me. That's a polite way of expressing my opinion of this new play by Alistair McDowall, which has garnered rave reviews all round. I'm allergic to sci-fi fantasy, ha…
Blood. How useful is it to a theatre director staging Jacobean revenge plays? John Ford's play ends with a scene that makes the end of Hamlet look like a vicarage tea-party. So is it best to…
Sam Yates. Never heard of him? Neither had I until I saw his cracking revival of Ayub Khan Din's East is East last night at Trafalgar Studios. This is is his first West End show, but he's cl…
There's a strong sense of place and time and social context in Chekhov's plays which make them difficult to adapt convincingly to a modern setting. That's why I'm generally lukewarm about ve…
Harriet Walter 'Mad' Frankie Fraser When Phyllida Lloyd staged Julius Caesar at the Donmar two years ago, reinventing the play by placing it in a women's prison, I welcomed the absence of ha…
'Melodrama' is often used by me and by most theatregoers as a pejorative term. Today the word suggests a form of drama that relies on over-intense emotions, improbable plots and thinly drawn…
'FRIENDS, series 11. The one where Phoebe and Joey organise a creative writing group.' That's my review of Theresa Rebeck's comedy at the Hampstead Theatre. I kept it short because good crea…
The first play in this cycle by Rona Munro about 15th century Scottish monarchs whetted my appetite for more. Now I've seen parts two and three, I would really like to see all three of them …
Max Stafford-Clark's fertile imagination as a theatre director provided the initial suggestion for this new play by Richard Bean, just as he provided the initial spark for Timberlake Wertenb…
Contest over. There can be only one winner of Best Actress at the next Olivier awards. Her name is Kristin Scott Thomas. Scott Thomas delivers a performance of breathtaking intensity in the …
Chorleywood is a harmless little town in Hertfordshire, within striking distance of Watford. I feel sorry for its hapless residents, because Chorleywood is also notorious as the name of the …
'Rules of chivalry? Bollocks to that!' Henry V of England is offering a little advice to the newly minted James 1, King of Scots, as he returns from 18 years in captivity. James wants to lea…
I was left spellbound in 2012 by Cillian Murphy's amazing solo performance in Enda Walsh's Misterman, brought from the Galway Festival to the National Theatre. Ballyturk, another 90-minute p…
Do I like verbatim theatre? Up to a point, Lord Copper. As I wrote three years ago after seeing Alecky Blythe's London Road at the National Theatre, it's a genre that has its limitations. Wh…
Our first sight of Helen McCrory is of her brushing her teeth, coming out of a rather downmarket alcove with a sink dressed in khaki warrior trousers and a skinny top. The teeth-brushing is …
Lynn Nottage's play at the Park Theatre, set in 1905 in New York, tells the fictionalised story of her great-grandmother. Esther is a dumpy African-American seamstress, living on her own in …
Peter Shaffer's plays pose a problem for directors and actors; his writing is extremely prescriptive, with detailed directions on movement, music, design and costume that leave anyone who re…
