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: The Mirror and the Light, Gielgud Theatre now closing 28/11/21 (2021)
Ben Miles as Thomas Cromwell (Photo: Marc Brenner)

REVIEW: The Mirror and the Light, Gielgud Theatre now closing 28/11/21 (2021)

Concluding her trilogy which started with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel, with Ben Miles, has adapted this final part The Mirror and the Light.   Ask not where Mike Poulton is, the award winning author/adaptor of so many RSC conversions from page to stage and indeed the adaptor of the first two novels.  He was unavailable.

Continue ReadingREVIEW: The Mirror and the Light, Gielgud Theatre now closing 28/11/21 (2021)
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.

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