Alan Franks

Alan Franks Alan Franks contributes regularly with reviews for London and regional shows, as well as reporting on press launches. Alan was a Times feature writer for more than thirty years, specialising in the arts and interviewing many leading actors, writers and directors, including Arthur Miller, Peter Hall, Woody Allen, Judi Dench and Stephen Sondheim. He is the author of several plays, including The Mother Tongue starring Prunella Scales, and his latest novel, The Notes of Dr. Newgate, is published by Muswell Press.

Blood Knot by Athol Fugard – Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond

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Kalungi Ssebandeke in BLOOD KNOT by Athol Fugard - Orange Tree Theatre - photo by Richard Hubert Smith.

Since it’s more than half a century since the first staging of this early Athol Fugard play, it has become something of an historical document as well as a continuingly relevant study of South African apartheid’s contamination of human relations. The relations in question here are close, even fraternal, as the plot concerns two adult … Read more

Party Time and Celebration – Pinter at the Pinter | Review

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The Company in Pinter Six. Photo credit Marc Brenner

Watching these two late Pinter one-acters in the major season that bears his name, performed in the theatre that does likewise, I couldn’t help thinking of a remark made by his friend and fellow dramatist, albeit a very different one, Tom Stoppard. About ten years ago, when the theatre was still called the Comedy, there … Read more