Tag Archives: Royal Court Theatre

Father Comes Home From The Wars

Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London (****)

© Tristram Kenton, Steve Toussaint (Hero) and ever loyal wife, Penny (Nadine Marshall)

© Tristram Kenton, Steve Toussaint (Hero) and ever loyal wife, Penny (Nadine Marshall), in background Leo Wringer (The Oldest Old Man

More than a decade ago, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog swaggered over from New York to the Royal Court.  Continue reading

Linda

Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London (****)

© Johan Persson

© Johan Persson

With extraordinary, even eerily apt timing, in the week that a judge ruled that a woman who felt she had lost her sparkle at 50 had a right to refuse life-saving dialysis treatment, the Royal Court’s latest deals precisely with the invisibility felt by older women. Continue reading

Plaques and tangles

Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs (****)

© Manuel Harlan

© Manuel Harlan

This is the second play in as many months about the onset of Alzheimers. Florian Zeller’s The Father is still in the West End (at Wyndhams Theatre). And at the end of last year, Barney Norris’ Visitors was a wonderfully quiet and subtle reflection on a slow decline into dementia as well as a harrowing account of family dysfunction. Continue reading

Now or Later

Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London

Whilst other matters have recently overtaken the race to be the next President of the United States, the election proper in November still awaits us. In the interim, we can enjoy Christopher Shinn’s new play, set on the night of a fictional Presidential election. Continue reading

Hangmen

Royal Court Jerwood Theatre, Downstairs, London (***)

© Simon Annand

© Simon Annand

 

Appropriately for a writer whose stock in trade is the darkest of gallows humours, Martin McDonagh, playwright and screen-writer/director (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths) has returned to the London stage after a decade’s absence with a play about hangmen. Continue reading