Theatre

TIM WALKER says theatre is vital for national morale – and lists his favourite musicals, dramas, and everything stage-centric from the last twelve months. This is the time of year when theatre critics get to say what productions they most enjoyed over the preceding 12 months, and, if you bear with me, I’ll come to […]

TIM WALKER reviews a performance of the Three Sisters at the National Theatre. Quite possibly in response to the vacuity of the times in which we live, the National Theatre seems to have adopted a policy of staging very long, cerebral and earnest productions. Inua Ellams’ adaptation of Chekov’s Three Sisters – running to three […]

A dilution of Dickens, TIM WALKER reviews a stage production of A Christmas Carol. There’s a peculiar intimacy to A Christmas Carol. It’s Charles Dickens holding his readers by the scruff of the neck, saying he knows about the weaknesses of each and every one of them, and warning that if they don’t mend their […]

The big budget spectacular is lavish and extravagant – but is failed by its lack of heart. Shaftesbury Theatre, London, until May 30 Even down to the trendy ampersand in the title, & Juliet appears to have been created not by lyricists and composers, but advertising men and focus groups. It’s great of course that […]

Duke of York’s Theatre, London, until February 29. On a local newspaper, I once reported on a Townswomen’s Guild’s attempt to re-enact the Battle of Britain. I sat for nearly an hour transfixed as about a dozen old girls, with papier-mâché wings attached to their shoulders, threw themselves into the ambitious project with manic intensity. […]

TIM WALKER reviews Sydney & the Old Girl at Park Theatre, London. Miriam Margolyes has a splendidly comic face, a splendidly comic voice and a splendidly comic sense of timing. A more splendidly comic actress it’s hard to imagine. I could happily watch Margolyes reciting the entire electoral roll without becoming even remotely bored. I […]

TIM WALKER reviews the National Theatre’s latest production Ironically, the highest salary I’ve so far received in my career was when I was required to do absolutely nothing. I was working for a business start-up that no one was supposed to know about – something to do with upgrading the security technology at airports – […]

TIM WALKER reviews The Girl Who Fell which is at Trafalgar Studios until November 23. When I think of the internet, and how the world was before we had it and how it is now, I wonder if Sir Winston Churchill’s verdict on Stanley Baldwin doesn’t also hold good for its inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. […]

TIM WALKER reviews Brian Friel’s Translation at the National Theatre. The grizzled old Jimmy Jack Cassie laments in Brian Friel’s play Translations: “I’m a barbarian in this place because I’m not understood by anybody.” All any of us ultimately want in life is to be understood – that’s how we establish our identity – but […]

TIM WALKER reviews Noises Off at the Garrick Theatre, and reminisces on the play’s former glory When it’s done correctly, Noises Off, Michael Frayn’s comedy about life backstage, should look like a perfectly-choreographed ballet. Actors need to pass on props – such as plates of sardines, telephones and suitcases – to one another with split-second […]

TIM WALKER says ‘Master Harold’… and the boys is a long burn production in a time of inpatient theatregoers. For most of the 100 minutes that Roy Alexander Weise’s production of ‘Master Harold’… and the Boys runs, there is a ‘least said, soonest mended’ approach to the issue of apartheid in South Africa in the […]

Aoife Duffin delivers a haunting mixture of fragility and defiance in this ‘stunning production’. Theatre is about melting the ice within, of awakening dormant cells, of making us more fully alive, more fully human, at once more individual and more connected to each other. I wish I’d written that, but it was in fact Franz […]

TIM WALKER called the performance a good-looking, good-natured, feelgood production One’s hopes for Big: The Musical were miniscule. The idea of making a show out of the schmaltzy 1988 Tom Hanks film – about a kid whose wish to be ‘big’ is granted – is of course inherently preposterous. What next: a huge water tank […]

‘A Very Expensive Poison’ is about as guttural and stereotypical as six straight shots of vodka, writes TIM WALKER Tom Brooke as Alexander Litvinenko and MyAnna Buring as Marina in A Very Expensive Poison – Credit: Archant With colour- and even gender-blind casting now commonplace in the world of the theatre, I’m not sure if […]

TIM WALKER gives a glowing review of playwright Andre Bovell’s newest ‘epic, big screen’ play. It was the playwright John Osborne who observed that it was a gift from God to be born English. Stiff upper lips, Spitfires, Scott of the Antarctic and sanctimoniousness: we’ve always been encouraged to believe that we’re superior to everyone […]

TIM WALKER reviews The Doctor at London’s Almeida Theatre Social media has helped to make identity politics an inescapable part of modern life. This has been as much of a curse as a blessing since it means we’re now required to be in an almost perpetual state of outrage over this, that and the other. […]

TIM WALKER reviews Evita at Regent’s Park Theatre and gives the performance five stars. Stage performance of Evita at Regents Park Theatre. Photograph: Marc Brenner. – Credit: Archant Jamie Lloyd’s revival of Evita is played out on a stage taken up entirely by a staircase that leads up to the rusting capital letters E, V, […]

It’s a case of all aboard for murder as Eastenders star Samantha Womack plays an embittered, unemployed Rachel Watson. Duke of York’s, London, until August 17 In essence, The Girl on the Train is a creaky, old-fashioned whodunnit with ideas above its station. And, yes, a brilliantly clever pun was just intended there. Fans of […]

Even when staging a musical like Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! there’s a perilously thin dividing line between magnificence and naffness says TIM WALKER. A lot of the problem is that there can be few, if any, punters who haven’t now heard all of the big numbers in a sturdy old classic like this at least […]

TIM WALKER reviews The Night of the Iguana at the Noel Coward Theatre, London. “Oh God, please can’t we stop now?” wails Lia Williams as a downtrodden artist towards the end of James Macdonald’s production of The Night of the Iguana. It was a sentiment I suspect a fair proportion of the first night audience […]

TIM WALKER’s take on the ‘mind-numbingly slow and boring’ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin at Pinter Theatre, London. I have neither read Louis de Bernières’ romantic novel Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, nor have I seen the film version, which starred Nicolas Cage and Penélope Cruz. This clearly put me at a distinct disadvantage as I attempted to make […]

Holey Moley! It’s a miracle Theatre at its very best is miraculous, or at least it amounts to the realisation of what seems impossible. Certainly, Luke Sheppard, the director of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾, must have been either brave or mad to have wanted to try to stage Sue Townsend’s much-loved […]

TIM WALKER gives his take on the comic play Present Laughter The laws of the land and the social mores that prevailed during most of Noël Coward’s life meant that he had – in common with a great many other playwrights, such as Terence Rattigan – to be subtle when it came to addressing the […]

TIM WALKER reviews Bitter Wheat at Garrick Theatre One imagines Harvey Weinstein must be flattered that John Malkovich should now be playing a character so obviously inspired by him on the London stage. Sure, he would probably have preferred it if the star hadn’t felt the need to don a fat suit, but, other than […]

‘On the surface, this is an incredibly stylish piece of theatre’. TIM WALKER gives four stars to the Chichester Festival’s Plenty. If playwrights like Noel Coward and Terence Rattigan wrote plays that largely show Great Britain as she likes to see herself, David Hare has a habit of writing about her as she really is. […]

Bold, challenging theatre which encapsulates the joy and misery of that crazy thing called love. Kiln Theatre, London, until July 6 “All you need to know about A Doll’s House is a woman walks,” says Suzannah, the bohemian actress played by Sirine Saba in Samuel Adamson’s new play, Wife. Ibsen’s classic hastened the march towards […]

TIM WALKER speaks to Michael Longhurst about the Donmar Theatre’s revival of Europe – and why he is keen that it sends a very political message. “This country has been sitting on a powderkeg for too long. A spark was bound to catch. He said he’d tighten up on immigration controls. After all… feelings were […]

TIM WALKER’s latest stage review says a career revival for aging teen idol Matthew Broderick has failed to launch. What does Matthew Broderick, the fresh-faced, teen-idol star of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, do when he gets older? He makes an attempt at relaunching his career on the West End stage. I’m not quite sure if […]

Tim Walker reviews stage show Anna. The peculiar acoustics of the Whispering Gallery, directly beneath the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, mean it’s possible to randomly eavesdrop on the conversations of strangers, even if they are some distance away. Ben and Max Ringham, the sound designers of Anna, achieve the same effect in this startlingly […]

TIM WALKER reviews Orpheus Descending at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. I’m on a theatrical bender without end, and, take it from me, I’m on the hard stuff. I’ve downed three Arthur Millers in quick succession and now it’s time for a shot of Tennessee Williams, who is, quite frankly, right up there with […]

TIM WALKER reviews Arthur Miller’s best-known play Death of a Salesman. Musicals and comedies have traditionally always been in demand during bleak times, but London would appear to have come to the view that it’s beyond cheering up and is bingeing on Arthur Miller, the theatrical equivalent of a bottle of Bruichladdich with a Mogadon […]

Tim Walker reviews stage show Small Island. A white couple find themselves the parents of a black baby and they’ve not adopted him. This sounds like the start of an awful racist joke, but it’s what happens towards the end of Small Island, and, given the setting is post-war Britain, there’s nothing remotely funny about […]