In a capitalist society, we’re nearly all hired hands, but the extent of the exploitation is more or less pernicious. Melvyn Bragg’s gritty, Northern, sweeping tale ultimately finds the best option for the ordinary man is to accept a pittance to work above ground rather than to toil in a futile World War I trench or in a narrow coal seam beneath the sea.
plays
Art is at its most powerfully dramatic when it gives voice to the oppressed. By using the device of a play within a play to utmost effect, The Island communicates the oppression of a recent generation by drawing on tragic defiance from classical times.
Richard III manages to be at once resounding royal propaganda and an unsettling reminder of the fragility of the status quo given Elizabeth I’s lack of an heir: the Tudors had rescued the kingdom from the murderous House of York, but they hadn’t secured the future for long.
Thomas Ovans is impressed by Roger Owen’s absorbing and lucid introduction to the work of the Welsh dramatist Gwenlyn Parry
The Donmar Warehouse stages Josie Rourke’s own take on Coriolanus, the Roman general who could not stoop to flatter the public and who pays the highest price for his `arrogance’.
How do we acknowledge the mess that Britain made in 1947 when the Indian subcontinent was carved into two countries? This is the central question underlying Howard Brenton’s caustic new play. Drawing The Line explores the moment when the line between India and Pakistan was made and British rule in India ended.
The Passion of Pierre Clémenti: European cinema’s christ-devil child. by Helen Donlon. “I hung out in St. Germain. Picking up cigarettes from the street. One day, a guy came up to me and said, ‘Come with me, we need you.’
Lies, lies, lies! They make your head spin – but they make the world go round too… The King’s Head Theatre presents the World Premiere of a new comedy The Truth-Teller by David Crook Director Svetlana Dimcovic Designer Christian Taylor
“I’m not having an affair. It’s better than that …” (Haunted Child’s Douglas, played by Ben Daniels) Haunted Child is the latest offering to the Royal Court from Joe Penhall. Sadly, this Jeremy Herrin directed three hander falls rather short of expectation.
Michael Bartholomew-Biggs reviews the National Theatre production
The State vs John Hayes. At the beginning of 2012 there were 58 women on death row in America. The State vs John Hayes is a searing seventy minute monologue by one such woman.
In the shocker “can-it-possibly-be-true?” atmosphere of tabloid journalism, this theatrical account of Murdoch’s acquisition of a moribund Sun newspaper and his appointment of the angry Albert “Larry” Lamb to bring it back to life tells us the notorious press baron’s grandfather was a minister in the Scottish church.
By Barbara Lewis • plays, theatre, year 2017 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre