This was the UK premiere for the Compagnie Marie Chouinard from Quebec. She started with Soft virtuosity, still humid, on the edge – a title that means nothing in English but perhaps has more resonance in French. Happily the work was far more exciting than the title.
theatre
In our modern, toxic world, the perfect embodiment of the endless struggle between good and evil could be the green warrior versus the polluter.
Ultimately, that’s the premise of The Toxic Avenger, the rock musical, which director Benji Sperring happened to see during one free afternoon off-Broadway in New York in 2009.
Thomas Ovans enjoys an evening at the theatre which recalls a golden age of cinema.
A trawl through an old school year book and the realisation of how many contemporaries had ended their own lives underlined for writer Pearse Elliott the truth that suicide is so prevalent it has acquired the force of the inevitable.
Romeo Castellucci at Brussels’ La Monnaie (De Munt in Dutch) opera house takes a real-life sufferer of locked-in syndrome and turns her into the protagonist of Ophee et Eurydice (adapted by Hector Berlioz from Gluck).
Noel Coward wrote of his musical Ace of Clubs that “the idea is to do it as simply as humanly possible”. For the first professional London revival since the original 1950 production, Southwark’s Union Theatre draws on its decade of experience of producing loveable, low-budget musicals and takes Coward at his word.
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.
This is a gripping novel by a hugely gifted writer and one that is rich on atmosphere and character study. The originality of the work is its investigative story line which focuses on the loving relationship between a twin and her disabled sister.
By Julia Pascal • books, literature, year 2016 • Tags: books, Julia Pascal, theatre