Tag Archives: Soutra Gilmour

Guards at the Taj

Bush Theatre, London (****)

© Marc Brenner, Darren Kuppan (Babur) and Danny Ashok (Humayun) - the two guards, on guard...

© Marc Brenner, Darren Kuppan (Babur) and Danny Ashok (Humayun) – the two guards, on guard…

Revamped to the tune of £4.3million by those troubadours of theatre architecture, Haworth Tompkins (the Young Vic, the Royal Court, the Donmar and the Almeida are just some of their recent judicious face-lifting credits), the Bush Theatre kicks off its new life with a design befitting its new enlarged status. Continue reading

Les Blancs

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

© Johan Persson, Danny Sapani (Tshembe Matoseh) and Matriarch singers

© Johan Persson,
Danny Sapani (Tshembe Matoseh) and Matriarch singers

A landmark production in a National Theatre repertoire increasingly spreading its wings, Lorraine Hansberry’s rarely seen Les Blancs is more incendiary even than her A Raisin in the Sun, now regarded as an American classic, but radically breaking the mould despite its Broadway success. Continue reading

Reasons to be Happy

Hampstead Theatre, London (****)

© Manuel Harlan, Lauren O'Neil (Steph), Tom Burke (Greg)

© Manuel Harlan,
Lauren O’Neil (Steph), Tom Burke (Greg)

At the end of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole, the last play at Hampstead, I wrote: `Not a great play…but observationally, sharp, sensitive, comforting and true.’ That almost sums up the American rom-com that is Neil LaBute’s Reasons to be Happy.  Continue reading

Raz

Trafalgar Studios, London (****)

© Oliver Rosser, James Cartwright (Shane)

© Oliver Rosser, James Cartwright (Shane)

As of old, Jim Cartwright’s Raz packs a punch. `Out on the raz’, `getting hammered’, `Friday night is binge night’, they certainly know how to do it `up North’ if Cartwright’s racey homage to an end-of-week night out is anything to go by. Continue reading