Tag: Olivier Theatre

Health bills clean and filthy

‘Nye’ is about parliamentary fights and the helplessness of being on call at a parent’s deathbed. It offers one of the deepest understandings of a death scene you may experience on a live stage, and interpretations of iconic figures such as Bevan, Churchill and Chamberlain to knock your socks off.

Dick and the power of hope

PREPARE TO BE swept away by the political ambitions of a humble orange-dungareed young man with a man ban, a blanket stick and a cheeky yellow Tom Cat, in the National Theatre’s pantomime Dick Whittington, which you can see, for the next couple of days, for free online. […]

Of rude vessels, mediocrity and gods

FILM REVIEW: AMADEUS AT THE NATIONAL THEATRE. THE CURIOUS FLAW in this almost mythic tale of maverick talent, jealousy and the celebration of mediocrity, is how it is hinged on ostensible fact. Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play Amadeus took some fuzzy hearsay around the life and death of 18th […]

Honourable members, football hooligans

FILM REVIEW: THIS HOUSE. YOU DO NOT need to be an expert in the shenaginans of British political history to be swept away on the current of caustic cynicism and dead pan humour that sutures together this beautiful piece of theatre. James Graham’s contemporary work aligns Tory values […]

Whirligig revenges and yellow stockings

THEATRE REVIEW: TWELFTH NIGHT Humour is easily one of the most difficult genres to uphold: it dates; what may have been pants-wettingly hilarious in the 1500s, might be simply boring or perplexing today. In the hands of Simon Godwin, however, the gender fluid wildness of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth […]