Read more about the article REVIEW: Hamlet, Young Vic (2021)
Cush Jumbo as Hamlet (Photo: Helen Murray)

REVIEW: Hamlet, Young Vic (2021)

Cush Jumbo's soliloquies are deep and thoughtful, every word heard as they should be.  This is the third time I recall the Young Vic choosing an excellent Hamlet but giving him a problematic production.  There was Peter Brook's curtailing Adrian Lester's Hamlet to just Hamlet's lines in the play.  There was Ian Rickson's setting of Martin Sheen as Hamlet in a psychiatric ward with Gertrude as a fellow patient and Claudius as the consultant psychiatrist.  We walked through an installation of the back of a hospital with a dispensary before seeing the play.  The last really successful, all round Hamlet I remember at the Young Vic was Paul Rhys's 1930s European royalty in 1999.

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Read more about the article REVIEW: What If If Only, Royal Court Jerwood Downstairs (2021)
What If If Only by Churchill, , Writer - Caryl Churchill, Director - James Macdonald, Designer - , Lighting Designer - , The Royal Court Theatre, 2021, Credit: Johan Persson

REVIEW: What If If Only, Royal Court Jerwood Downstairs (2021)

Even without Andy getting up to his paradoxical tricks, quarter-hours have not latterly had a good press, vis "un mauvais quart d'heure".  Lasting 17 minutes straight through, What If If Only - the latest piece by Caryl Churchill, is the polar opposite of "un mauvais quart d'heure".  It packs a wealth of suggestion in its brief allotted span.  And the wonder of it is that it does so with an elating lightness of touch.

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Read more about the article REVIEW: The Normal Heart, Olivier, National Theatre (2021)
LizCarr as Dr Emma Brookner and Ben Daniels as Ned Weeks (Photo: Helen Maybanks)

REVIEW: The Normal Heart, Olivier, National Theatre (2021)

The play opens with a silent funereal tribute with the whole cast gathered around a flame in a brazier.  As the brazier is raised to the flies, a furious party ensues with disco music.  In Scene 1 in July 1981 we see Craig Donner (Elander Moore) terrified at his diagnosis.  Craig Donner is barely out of his teens and he is frightened and shaking with emotion.  An older man David (Richard Cant) has dark lesions on his face. 

Continue ReadingREVIEW: The Normal Heart, Olivier, National Theatre (2021)