Tag: theatre

  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

    The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

    This is a review of both Neil Gaiman’s novel, but also of the theatrical production that recently began at the National Theatre. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, published in 2013, is said to be the most autobiographical of Gaiman’s work. The plot starts in the present day as an unnamed man returns…

  • Berberian Sound Studio

    Berberian Sound Studio was a very fine 2012 horror film made by Peter Strickland. Set in the seventies, Toby Jones starred as Gilderoy, a sound mixer who has been employed to work on an Italian film called The Equestrian Vortex. He believes that he was employed because of his sound recording and mixing on a documentary about…

  • Network

    The 1976 Paddy Chayefsky film is something of a classic with Peter Finch’s network news anchor Howard Beale essentially having a nervous breakdown on air when the network first tries to push him out the door, and then, when ratings soar, grab hold of him and let him do what he wants. It has always…

  • Nell Gwynn

    Sitting down at the Apollo with a few friends, I realised that I didn’t know a whole lot about Nell Gwynn. I knew vaguely that she’d once been a prostitute, became a stage actress – famous in her day – and won lots of admirers including the King. Broadly speaking that’s right, and although I…

  • The Encounter

    The Encounter is a tour de force piece from actor, writer and director Simon McBurney and the Complicite theatre company. I confess that I mostly knew McBurney from his acting roles including the excellent Archdeacon Robert in the wonderful Rev with Tom Hollander, but you soon realise how accomplished he is simply from this one…

  • A Streetcar Named Desire

    The corner of Royal and Desire in New Orleans. There really was a streetcar that ran along Desire… It seems that this has been one of the hot tickets of the season, which just makes it bit odd that I managed to buy a pair of tickets for a Saturday night a couple of weeks…

  • Medea

    Medea at the National is a superb new production of Euripes’ classic tale – first performed in 431 BC. Medea (Helen McCrory) has separated from her husband Jason (Danny Sapani), and been banished to some far flung part of Greece with her two sons. Jason is to marry the daughter of Creon, King of Corinth.…

  • Great Britain

    Here’s something a little unusual – a play that was written and rehearsed in secrecy, only being revealed at the culmination of the hacking trial, with the first performances at the National Theatre taking place just a week later. This certainly ticked all my boxes with the subject matter. This a fictionalised account of the…