REVIEW: Bitter Wheat, Garrick Theatre ✭✭✭
Julian Eaves reviews Bitter Wheat, a new play by David Mamet starring John Malkovich now playing at the Garrick Theatre, London.
Christopher Oram
REVIEW: Red, Wyndham’s Theatre ✭✭✭✭
Paul T Davies reviews Alfred Molina and Alfred Enoch in John Logan’s play Red at the Wyndham’s Theatre.
REVIEW: Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, Wyndhams Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭
Audra McDonald makes her unaccountably long-awaited London theatrical debut in the most astonishing way possible in this devastating re-telling of the story of Billie Holiday
REVIEW: The Entertainer, Garrick Theatre ✭✭✭✭
The Entertainer’, a brilliantly performed play paralleling the breakdown of the British Empire and the decline of music hall, which concludes Kenneth Branagh’s season at the Garrick.
REVIEW: Romeo And Juliet, Garrick Theatre ✭✭✭✭
This Romeo and Juliet are not gushy and are more than the Innamorati of Commedia Dell’arte. They are (James especially) sincere and relatable versions of two sweethearts.
REVIEW: All On Her Own – Harlequinade, Garrick Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭
The revival of Harlequinade, directed by Branagh and Ashford, now playing at the Garrick Theatre (in a 100 minute experience that includes All On Her Own and no intervals) is something of a revelation. Mostly, Harlequinade is seen in conjunction with The Browning Version, one of Rattigan’s masterpieces, usually as a curtain raiser. To my mind, that combination has never worked and Harlequinade has always seemed pale and irksome by comparison with The Browning Version. But, here, released from the curtain raiser position, placed directly in the spotlight, splendidly set up by the intense darkness of All On Her Own, the play can shine.
REVIEW: The Winter’s Tale, Garrick Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭✭
Dench’s verse speaking is unrivalled. She picks each word and gives it full, accurate weight, landing the sense, purpose and exact emotion of every glittering phrase. She is wily, wise and wonderful. Her pained berating of Leontes when she tells him Hermione is dead is one of the greatest moments in theatre I have ever witnessed. So powerful, it knocks the breath from your body.
REVIEW: Photograph 51, Noel Coward Theatre ✭✭
It is important to be clear about Kidman’s failures because the character she plays, Rosalind Franklin, at least in the version of history which Ziegler endorses in her script, is a towering figure in the unlocking of the DNA double helix, a woman betrayed, belittled and beaten by a pack of self-serving, sanctimonious and utterly vile men. For the play to work, Kidman’s character needs to be inspirational, complicated, difficult, extraordinary; coming across as a mediocre functionary is simply not enough.
