Tag Archives: Lizzie Clachan

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Donmar Warehouse, London ****

© Manuel Harlan, Lia Williams as Jean Brodie with her girls, the Brodie set...

© Manuel Harlan, Lia Williams as Jean Brodie with her girls, the Brodie set…

It’s interesting how Maggie Smith’s iconic 1969 performance as Edinburg teacher Jean Brodie has so stuck in people’s minds. Definitive in many ways, it was therefore brave of Josie Rourke to programme a revival.

Polly Findlay’s fine production, in David Harrower’s new adaptation, certainly justifies her decision. Continue reading

Life of Galileo

Young Vic Theatre, London (****)

© Leon Puplett, Life of Galileo and audience

© Leon Puplett, Life of Galileo and audience

Clever programming from David Lan has delivered exactly the right kind of play at the right time. Whatever you may think about Bertolt Brecht’s more doctrinaire views, here’s a play in Joe Wright’s visually spectacular, star-gazing production that says exactly what needs to be said for a society reeling from and dominated by self-interest and finance

Continue reading

The Truth

The Menier Chocolate Factory, Southwark, London (****)

© Marc Brenner, Frances O'Connor (Alice) and Alexander Hanson (Michel) in Menier Chocolate Factory and Theatre Royal Bath co-production of Florian Zeller's The Truth

© Marc Brenner, Frances O’Connor (Alice) and Alexander Hanson (Michel) in Menier Chocolate Factory and Theatre Royal Bath co-production of Florian Zeller’s The Truth

Having scored walloping successes with The Father and The Mother, Florian Zeller’s The Truth, once again adapted by Christopher Hampton, comes as  light, comic relief although its subject of marital infidelity can be as much tragedy as comedy. Continue reading

Macbeth

Young Vic Theatre, London (***)

© Richard Hubert Smith

© Richard Hubert Smith

If you come out of the theatre extolling the virtues of the set rather than the play, well, something’s amiss somewhere. Fine to re-cast Shakespeare in a mode for today but this is the second Young Vic Shakespeare whose obsession with modernity falls on the side of tricksy rather than illuminating. Continue reading

As You Like It

Olivier, National Theatre, London (****)

© Johan Persson

© Johan Persson

One normally imagines As You Like It as a rustic rom-com. Polly Findlay hasn’t exactly ignored its usual romantic setting so much as, taking her cue from the characters in the play – and one or two other hints such as comedy routines, a bit of a music hall, a bit of high tech there – has given it a transformative make-over. Continue reading