Mark Ludmon

Mark Ludmon has been a journalist for over 20 years, specialising in writing about theatre and the arts as well as bars, pubs and drink. He has been on the theatre judging panel for London’s Olivier Awards and has a masters degree in English literature, specialising in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He has an MA in theatre research, criticism and dramaturgy from the University of London’s Royal Central School of Speech & Drama. You can find him tweeting about theatre as @MarkLudmon and writing about theatre at markludmon.com.

All the winners from the Manchester Theatre Awards

Features, News, Regional, Touring
Manchester Theatre Awards 2018

Mark Ludmon takes a look at all the winners from the Manchester Theatre Awards 2018 Oldham Coliseum’s staging of Florian Zeller’s drama The Father has won the title of best production along with best leading actor for Kenneth Alan Taylor in the Manchester Theatre Awards. The north-west premiere of the play, translated by Christopher Hampton and directed by Kevin Shaw, was among a number of home-grown productions to receive accolades at today’s ceremony at The Lowry in Salford alongside touring shows. Janet Suzman was named best actress in a leading role for the revival of Martin Sherman’s one-woman show Rose at Home. Both awards for supporting roles also went to productions at Home: Katie West for Uncle Vanya and Andrew Sheridan in the UK tour of Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places and Things. Paul Auster’s City of Glass, adapted by Duncan Macmillan and premiered at the Lyric Hammersmith in London, racked … Read more

REVIEW: Summer and Smoke, Almeida Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Reviews
Summer and Smoke at Almeida Theatre

Summer and Smoke Almeida Theatre Four stars Book Now Despite the poetic beauty of Tennessee Williams’s writing, at the height of his success, his dramas were rooted in reality, whether a St Louis apartment or a plantation home in the Deep South. His rarely produced 1948 play Summer and Smoke is set in the small, gossip-ridden Mississippi town of Glorious Hill which, according to the writer’s detailed notes, was to be clearly represented on stage, from American Gothic architecture to a public park presided over by the statue of an angel. But modern directors have been inspired by the fluid, dream-like qualities of Williams’s plays, especially his later work, to take a more abstract approach, which reaches sublime heights under director Rebecca Frecknall and designer Tom Scutt in a stunning new production at the Almeida. Nine upright pianos, each topped by a metronome, line the back of the otherwise stripped-back … Read more

Catch the stars of tomorrow now

Features
James Norton in Belleville

Mark Ludmon gets ready to go talent spotting in search of future stars Tickets for Belleville at the Donmar Warehouse have been like gold dust but, a few years ago, you could have managed to see TV and film star James Norton along with a host of other familiar names with a lot more ease. You might have caught him alongside Daisy May Cooper, the star of hit BBC comedy This Country, in Marius von Mayenburg’s The Stone, or appearing with James McArdle – soon to be in Angels in America on Broadway – in Shaw’s Man and Superman. As part of the same season, you could have enjoyed performances by Joshua McGuire, Alexandra Roach, Susan Wokoma, Phoebe Fox, Nick Hendrix, Seline Hizli, Ivanno Jeremiah, Tom Kay, Jenna Augen, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Cynthia Erivo and several other well-known faces from TV, film and stage, all performing together in final-year student productions … Read more

Vault Festival 2018 Preview

Features, News, Off West End
Vault Festival 2018 London

Mark Ludmon previews this year’s Vault festival in and around The Vaults in Waterloo, London Our pick of theatre and performance at Vault 2018 Every year, Vault arts festival just gets bigger and bigger. For 2018, more than 300 shows will take place around London’s Waterloo from January 24 to March 18, focused on The Vaults beneath the station but now bringing in new spaces including Waterloo East Theatre. It features comedy, film, live performance and theatre – a lot of theatre in fact, presenting exciting new talent and new writing. We pick out some of the shows that caught our attention. NeverLand Following Vault’s sell-out hit The Great Gatsby last year, The Guild of Misrule and Theatre Deli return with a Peter Pan-inspired new, immersive musical. Dive into a dark and dangerous world of mermaids, rum and glittering pirates. Expect food fights, absinthe bars and soaring live music from a … Read more