Almeida Theatre, London (****)
© Manuel Harlan, Paul Rhys (John), Jessica Brown Findlay (Sonya)
If you can get hold of the words, there’s something very special going on in Robert Icke’s new version of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Continue reading
Almeida Theatre, London (****)
© Hugo Glendinning
Richard Eyre, the National Theatre’s former supremo is making himself something of a specialist when it comes to Ibsen. Having adapted and directed Hedda Gabler and Ghosts to loud acclaim, now he’s taken on Ibsen’s less familiar Little Eyolf. What emerges is a taut chamber portrait of marriage and guilt – a template for later studies of marital warfare from Strindberg to Albee. Continue reading
Almeida Theatre, London
© Marc Brenner
Inspired equally by Bizet’s opera, the lifestyle of opera singers, a German director friend and concern over the effects of social media on human relations, Simon Stephens’ Carmen Disruption turns out to be a very personal `take’ with mixed results. Continue reading
Almeida Theatre, London
© Keith Pattison
In our surveillance, sex obsessed world, there’s a new kind of `big-game’ hunting now available. `Just a bit of fun’ is how one club owner describes the practise of installing two-way mirrors so that male customers can pay to watch their female equivalents in the toilet and changing areas, unbeknown to the women. Continue reading
Almeida Theatre, London
As if timed to perfection, George Orwell’s profound warning against state control, 1984, has stolen back into our consciousness just when surveillance is reaching a peak. Thanks to Edward Snowden, the NSA, GCHQ, Google and Facebook, issues of personal privacy have become burning subjects of debate.
Almeida Theatre, London
Whether you like them or not, Rupert Goold productions are never dull. By now a Goold production is stamped with his own distinctive tropes of originality, invention and a positive sense of pleasure in over-turning sacred cows.