‘You’re back again?’ said the friend-of-a-friend usher at the Almeida when I arrived for Hamlet. She was mistaken. The insanely awaited production starring Andrew Scott is so very sold-out that buying even one ticket felt like a triumph. And, at nigh-on four hours, I was sure once would be fine. Nah-uh: Scott’s performance and Robert Icke’s production are a blanket of revelation. I arrived … [Read more...]
Change the world, one hero at a time
From dude to dodo is a trick of vowels and imagination. Maybe, if we’re tired of seeing men dominate our stages, we need to exercise our imaginations, especially when it comes to casting. Unexpectedly, Shakespeare is leading the way. Shakespeare productions swapped gender from the word go, with the all-male Elizabethan companies. Sarah Bernhardt, Angela Winkler and Frances de la Tour have since … [Read more...]
No hope for Hamlet
Benedict Cumberbatch made me cry at Hamlet. Or, more precisely, at the curtain call, with a beautifully feeling, indignant and compassionate appeal for Save the Children’s work in the Syrian refugee crisis. Much of that intelligence and eloquence is in his eagerly awaited prince (the expectancy and rose of the fair state, and then some) – delivered to the most attentive audience in London –but … [Read more...]
In and out of history
What happens when an artist outlives their own era? When a voice, once so urgent, seems out of time, flailing for connection? Yuri Lyubimov, the great Russian director who died earlier this month aged 97, was a theatrical lightning conductor during the icy Soviet years, gathering the implacable forces of the state and zapping them back in provokingly surreal and thrilling ways. His theatre in … [Read more...]
Beyond the peter meter
So, let’s start with me. Spindly and saggy. Generously beconked, meagrely maned. A cavalcade of design flaws, a factory second at knock down prices. That’s me. And to an extent, that’s most of us. Even among critics there are eye-wateringly scrumptious exceptions (you know who you are), but in general, if they start hiring hacks for their looks, we’re all in trouble. Good looks and how to … [Read more...]