Category: Off West End
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Theatre ticket prices for West End plays and musicals have gone up and up, but there is more to London’s theatre scene – and cheaper options for getting your stagey fix. I call them off-West End theatres. They aren’t far from the centre of London but deliver quality productions with ticket prices that are more…
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Video transcript: On Instagram, I wrote that I thought The Children [Lyric Hammersmith] was underwhelming, and by that I mean it was okay. It didn’t wow me. It didn’t make me go: ‘That was amazing.’ It was all right.
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Ben Ockrent’s play Relics reminded me of Nachtland at the Young Vic from a couple of years ago. • Siblings reunite to divvy up their dead parents’ belongings. Tick. • A painting is found with a suspected dodgy history. Tick. • Said painting divides the siblings, causing arguments. Tick. Relics has a different comic tone,…
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Victoria Smurfit and Callum Scott Howells in Ghosts, Lyric Hammersmith. Photo: Helen Murray Gary Owen's new version of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts gives the play a contemporary setting, in a rural west country seaside location where low cloud ironically blocks the view from the large panoramic windows of Helena Alving's (Victoria Smurfit) minimalist lounge. Story details…
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Video transcript: I’m going to have to plead ignorance because when I booked to see The Little Foxes at the Young Vic, or rather, when my friend booked for us, I hadn’t heard the play. I didn’t know it was an American classic. I knew nothing about it, but that meant I went into it…
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When someone plays not just many characters but all the characters in a classic play as Eddie Izzard does here for Hamlet, I have two key questions: How will they do it and why, i.e. what will it add? When I saw Andrew Scott's one-man Vanya, while a technically brilliant performance, it didn't add to…
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It feels like theatre returned with a splash in 2023 after the dark days of Covid. I saw 62 and a half plays (64 and a half, including second viewings) across London's plethora of theatres, from tiny pubs to big West End stages. Here are my favourite 10 plays – in no particular order (links…
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I can now say I've seen Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio on stage. OK, so they were on telly on stage, but that is technically on stage. Kate and Leo were in Titanic mode, the favourite film of the son in Who Killed My Father. Who Killed My Father, Young Vic, Sep 2022 His…
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The Lyric Hammersmith's circle was steaming hot, but can the same be said about Closer, Patrick Marber's play about love, lust and lies? Closer, Lyric Hammersmith July 2022 Two men and two women form a love 'quadrangle': Dan (Jack Farthing) is an obituary writer, Anna is a photographer (Nina Toussaint-White), Larry (Sam Troughton) is a…