The Screenwriter’s Daughter is a compelling piece of theatre: a humorous, entertaining and historically enlightening new play currently showing at the Leicester Square Theatre. It revolves around the later life of Ben Hecht, a relatively unknown yet prolific and successful screenwriter during Hollywood’s Golden Age, and his increasingly tearaway daughter, Jenny, a counter-cultural revolutionary and […]
Adapted from a 1980s film that is credited for being the reason ‘Worst Film of the Year’ awards exist and taking its score from the songs of Olivia Newton John, I wasn’t expecting Brecht from this production of Xanadu but did approach the show with an open mind and the hope that it would live […]
Written by Caryl Churchill in the 1970s, Objections to Sex and Violence was Chruchill’s first production on a mainstage. Currently downtown at the Artscape Sandbox, it is a surprisingly relevant play, set against the political background of the 1970’s: the sexual revolution, and the global protest movement. But Churchill’s play invokes the political in a […]
Early in the first act of the musical Dames at Sea, cast members scurry around the stage as they practice for a dress rehearsal of “Dames at Sea”, which is to premier that very night. Even indoors, warm lights fill the stage with a yellow glow as if somehow the sun can shine just as […]
It has a more authentic angle than most adaptations of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s acclaimed novel, but this musical version by Ruby in the Dust cannot overcome the text’s inherent problems and its attempt at a modern reworking lacks unity. There is a danger in adapting The Great Gatsby: for a story about the dark underside […]
People are shouting to me about the dangers of capitalism and I think I am liking it—let me explain how I got here: the Belarus Free Theatre, an unregistered, underground theatre company, have partnered with the Young Vic all the way from their home country to bring Staging a Revolution: a series of performances centred […]
Age of Arousal (Factory Theatre) The best thing I’ve seen at the Factory Theatre in ages, Linda Griffiths’ Age of Arousal is funny and sad and executed with plenty of pathos to balance its slight lecturing vibe. As the lone man in the play, Sam Kalilieh is the exact kind of charming that leaves you […]
Recently, NASA published a flashy report outlining steps for sending humans to Mars within the next few decades – calling such a mission “within our reach.” Given NASA’s efforts to put a man or woman on the Red Planet, the idea that humans might one day colonize Mars is not as far-fetched as it sounds. […]