Tag Archives: Lyndsey Turner

Far Away

Donmar Warehouse,
41 Earlham Street,
Seven Dials, London WC2H 9LX

Runs: 40 mins without interval
Review of perf seen Feb 13, 2020:

© Johan Persson, Abbiegail Mills as young Joan surveying Lizzie Clachan’s apparently comforting arcadian scene until she sees what really lies inside…

By now, Caryl Churchill has become synonymous with startling experimentation. Continue reading

Aristocrats

Donmar Warehouse, London ***
Review by Carole Woddis of performance seen Aug 10, 2018:

© Johan Persson, David Ganly (centre), Aisling Loftus (right), Emmet Kirwan (Eamon) - picnic, Ballybeg Hall style...

© Johan Persson, David Ganly (centre), Aisling Loftus (right), Emmet Kirwan (Eamon) – picnic, Ballybeg Hall style…

Amazing to think it’s nearly forty years, 1979, since Brian Friel wrote Aristocrats and thirteen years (2005) since the National revived it in a Tom Cairns production which included a budding Andrew Scott. Continue reading

Girls & Boys

Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, London ****

© Marc Brenner, Carey Mulligan coolly describing terrible things...

© Marc Brenner, Carey Mulligan, sensational as raconteur, coolly describing terrible things…

The thing about Dennis Kelly is he likes to leave audiences with a moral question mark. Not for him easy platitudes. Or neat little conclusions. No wonder you’ll find him listed, amongst his credits, as author of the `book’ for Matilda the musical and the tv thriller, Utopia (also the comedy series, Pulling, on Netflix). Continue reading

Faith Healer

Donmar Warehouse, London (****)

&copy, Johan Persson, Stephen Dillane as Frank, the faith healer

&copy, Johan Persson, Stephen Dillane as Frank, the faith healer

Brian Friel’s Faith Healer (1979) is regarded as one of his best, if not the best of an amazing body of work. With its shaggy dog tales, its incantatory, metaphorical dream-like quality, guilt and exploration of the strange alchemical process that can produce miracles – spiritual or creative – its own magic lies in the close proximity of word and character with atmosphere. Continue reading

Light Shining in Buckinghamshire

Lyttelton, National Theatre

© Marc Brenner

© Marc Brenner

In the week before the most unpredictable General Election in a generation, Caryl Churchill’s humane, enlightened Light Shining in Buckinghamshire comes like a welcome blast from the past. Featuring events, impacts and debates surrounding the English Civil War, it couldn’t be more apt even if, born as it was in the heady theatrical turbulence of the 1970s when like its political predecessor 300 years earlier, rebellion, the collective will and processes were all up for grabs, it’s dramatic design does seem now from another age. Continue reading