The Hampstead’s Artistic Director, Roxana Silbert, likens Richard Eyre’s new play to Chekhov, proposing that it holds up a mirror to society without suggesting solutions. Whilst it’s true that there are few offered remedies to the dilemmas of Eyre’s script and production (he writes and directs), The Snail House is sadly less of a looking…
Roy Williams is not shy about his intent to write a ‘huge family epic’. The play is indeed sprawling and teeming with important ideas across three generations featuring a mother who travelled to the UK on HMT Empire Windrush and her daughters and grandchildren. At the centre of the play (and literally centred on stage…
That American playwright Theresa Rebeck’s new play, set in Pennsylvania, makes its global debut in London is indeed a treat. Featuring the mighty US star Bill Pullman, as Daniel, an insufferable patriarch on his deathbed, elevates the specialness of this production. But it is the sheer genius of David Harbour, particularly well-known for his role…
Ben Brown’s new play dramatises the fascinating true story of how SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler is persuaded by the ‘miraculous touch’ of Felix Kersten, the Nazi’s Finnish physiotherapist, to permit the International Red Cross to rescue some three thousand women (about half of them Jewish) from a concentration camp towards the end of WW2, as…
Tonderai Munyevu’s Mugabe, My Dad and Me is a touching coming-of-age story that speaks strongly to the African diasporic experience but also illuminates – with humour, rage and forgiveness – universal themes of longing and acceptance. Munyevu demonstrates impressive skill as a writer and performer by being able to start a show, charmingly, with an…
Chris Burgess’ Jewish Hollywood is like a musical essay – but instead of being a heavy-handed play of ideas, it’s a light-hearted – but wildly informative – narrated musical revue. The idea that attending a vibrantly relayed song-and-dance history lecture would be entertaining is novel – yet it succeeds in both informing and entertaining with…
The press material for The Winston Machine describes this new play as both an epic family saga (told through two love stories) and as a ‘contemporary state-of-the-nation show exploring how our relationship with the mythology of WWII shapes our present’. Unfortunately, the promise of a meaningful multi-generational saga remains largely unrealised despite impressive performances from…
Mykal Rand’s revival of the Olivier-winning Five Guys Named Moe is a high-energy, hootenanny of harmonies – offering West End calibre performances up-close in the Gatehouse’s intimate (but not claustrophobic) upstairs theatre. Although this show has nothing to do with the festive season per se, the joint feels like the kind of New Year’s bash…