Love Goddess. Review by Barbara Lewis. Rita Hayworth was considered one of the most beautiful women of her day, was Fred Astaire’s favourite dance partner, and was married five times, including to Orson Welles, the man she is believed to have truly loved. She also suffered from Alzheimer’s for two decades before being diagnosed.
plays
The Coral by Georg Kaiser. Review by Julia Pascal. The work explores the concept of the doppelganger and the fascination for the new science of psychiatry as well as interrogating capitalism itself.
My Fair Lady. English National Opera. Review by Julia Pascal. My Fair Lady, the musical version of George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play Pygmalion is staged at the English National Opera this summer.
The Wife of Willesden. Adapted by Zadie Smith from Chaucer’s ‘The Wife of Bath’. Kiln Theatre, London. Until 18 December 2021. Review by Carla Scarano.
Zadie Smith’s brilliant adaptation of ‘The Wife of Bath’ from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales triggers a rethinking of women’s roles in society.
Leopoldstadt Wyndham’s Theatre until October 30th 2021 Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt would have been better as a TV mini-series rather than this sprawling, over-populated two and a quarter hour play without an intermission. It is a long watch and although eminently worthwhile, feels too much like a history lesson.
Covid Lockdown Breath Machine, Online. The Edinburgh Fringe has always been the place to push at the limits of what theatre is. This year, that is truer than ever as the uncertainties of COVID-19 have driven a digital shift.
Oleanna, by David Mamet. Arts Theatre. Review by Graham Buchan. David Mamet has had a substantial forty-year plus career writing plays and films which drill into the deeper recesses of the American psyche with unrelenting precision.
The Human Voice, Charing Cross Theatre. Review by Barbara Lewis. It’s surely a temptation for today’s directors of Poulenc and Cocteau’s La Voix Humaine, or The Human Voice in this English version, to transpose it to the world of mobile phones. It’s one director Alejandro Bonatto wisely resists.
By Barbara Lewis • music, plays, theatre, year 2022 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, plays, theatre