Opera and cabaret singer Melinda Hughes lost her mother in June. Two months on, she has immortalised her in a song and is finding catharsis in a satirical take on the world.
theatre
by Barbara Lewis • music, opera, theatre, year 2019 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, opera, theatre •
Don Carlo â or Don Carlos â in history was the mentally unstable son of Philip II of Spain whose brief betrothal to the woman his father later married and contacts with Protestant rebels in the Low Countries provided ammunition for the âblack legendâ propaganda whipped up by the opponents of his fatherâs rule.
by Barbara Lewis • music, plays, theatre, year 2019 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, music, plays, theatre •
Chilean singer-songwriter, poet, cult figure Violeta Parraâs most famous work âGracias a la vidaâ can be viewed as an outpouring of gratitude â or as a suicide note.
by Jane McChrystal • plays, theatre, year 2019 • Tags: Jane McChrystal, plays, theatre •
Joy Wilkinson’s latest play tells the story of a troupe of fictional women fighters scrabbling to earn a living in the real-life world of ladyâs boxing in Victorian London and become world champion.
by Julia Pascal • plays, playwrights, theatre, year 2019 • Tags: Julia Pascal, plays, playwrights, theatre •
The idea of this drama came from an interview with a Kurdish soldier who had fled to England seeking asylum.
by Barbara Lewis • plays, theatre, year 2019 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre •
Almost exactly 100 years ago on April 13, in Amritsar, the British Indian Army fired into a crowd of unarmed Punjabis, killing and harming hundreds. Director Phil Wilmott marks this appalling example of manâs inhumanity to man by transporting Othello from Venice and Cyprus to the India of the British Raj.
by Julia Pascal • music, opera, theatre, year 2019 • Tags: Julia Pascal, music, opera, theatre •
This was the first time I had seen this operetta and the idea of Viennese kitsch did not excite me. Director Max Webster clearly shares my antipathy for schlock. His production is a wonderful reframing of the story from a post #MeToo perspective.
by Julia Pascal • plays, theatre, year 2019 • Tags: Julia Pascal, plays, theatre • 1 Comment
Medea is perhaps the most potent myth for the #MeToo generations. First-performed in 431 BC, Euripidesâ drama has had countless interpreters.
by Barbara Lewis • comedy, musicals, theatre, year 2019 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, musicals, theatre •
Five hundred years ago, Peckham was green and pleasant. By the 1980s and 1990s, when two of its most famous fictional characters Del Boy and Rodney Trotter were plying their dodgy wares, even the pigeons wanted to be elsewhere, or so Rodney tells us.
by Gary Beahan • plays, playwrights, theatre, year 2019 • Tags: Gary Beahan, plays, theatre •
Of all the Miller revivals currently doing the capitalâs round, âThe American Clockâ is not the softest option for any director, actor or audience to take on. Part social documentary, part human drama, part political commentary, it can feel at times like it has bitten off more vision and message than it can theatrically deliver.
by Julia Pascal • plays, theatre, year 2019 • Tags: Julia Pascal, plays, theatre • 0 Comments
It is rare to see productions of Brecht in London today. It is even rarer to see them performed in Russian.This jewel from Moscow came only briefly to London but it showed audiences that there is an antidote to endless naturalism.
by Barbara Lewis • plays, theatre, year 2019 • Tags: Barbara Lewis, plays, theatre •
Marcus Brigstocke makes his play-writing and directorial debut as actors Bruce and Sam Alexander, father and son in real life, give drama and poignancy to a story that begins with the funeral of the father.