Tag Archives: Hampstead Theatre

The Moderate Soprano

Hampstead Theatre, London (***)

© Manuel Harlan

© Manuel Harlan

Almost a year to the day since Roger Allam last appeared at Hampstead theatre in Theresa Rebeck’s Seminar, he’s returned in David Hare’s latest, a biographical portrait of the founders of Glyndebourne that suits him to a tee. Continue reading

Matchbox Theatre

Hampstead Theatre, London

© Manuel Harlan

© Manuel Harlan

Michael Frayn, a great British institution if ever there was one though I suspect he just might recoil at being called anything like an institution. In his own elegant way, Frayn has gone about his career questioning, pilloring and turning the chattering classes, the intelligentsia and middle class mores generally on their heads whilst celebrating them and theatre itself with rare, witty intelligence. Noises Off and Copenhagen I count as two of the purest forms of theatrical pleasure with perhaps the exception of Chekhov, of whom Frayn also happens to be superb translator. Continue reading