http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk Group authored publication exploring theatre and the performing arts in London and beyond Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:48:35 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Hard Times is one of those novels where everyone knows the start (tyrannical schoolmaster Gradgrind and the definition of “horse”), but no-one seems to know the ending. Icon Theatre’s production remedies this deficiency, weaving a complicated, compassionate and grown-up tale of lives blighted by subjection to social and financial expedience. ... http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/hard-times/ A married couple live with their son in a wholesome gated community. The neighbours are polite, there are facilities for the whole family, and at night the streetlamps play violin concertos so the family don't have to listen as infiltrators are gunned down by the gate guards. Falk Richter's play, translated ... http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/state-of-emergency/ Euripides’ Alcestis, a not-quite-tragic Greek tragedy, centres upon a wife’s self-sacrificing decision to die in her doomed husband’s place. Ted Hughes’ version of the play is a visceral and uncompromising meditation on the struggle to live ‘in the same world as death’, to survive and nurture hope in the face ... http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/alcestis/ In Aristophanes’ The Birds, a city in the clouds is the background to an ambivalent satire on utopianism and realpolitik. Cloudcuckooland, a musical for children, re-imagines Aristophanes’ comedy as a boisterously upbeat fable about climate change, inter-species co-operation and the possibility of building better worlds. City-girl Swifty is depressed and apathetic, ... http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/cloudcuckooland/ “If everyone is out looking for a myth, how can they find reality?” This sentence occurs towards the end of Christopher James’ new play at the Courtyard. On the surface, it seems to be nothing more than a succinct analysis of the plot (and James shows some skill in these ... http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/the-day-they-banned-christmas/ Making new writing accessible is Paines Plough's business. Later is a new writing 'salon' in which playwrights curate playwrights to showcase work in progress, previews, experiments and rehearsed readings. At only £5 per ticket it's affordable to practically everyone, and starting at 10 p.m. it's accessible even to those seizing ... http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/later-paines-plough/ Annamation are a trio of wise women, with the voices of angels and a taste for low comedy. In their current show Tongue and Groove, fantastical, sometimes terrible tales are woven into and around one another. An abandoned child, cursed with a heart of wood, is lured towards his destiny ... http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/tongue-and-groove/ Christopher Shinn has so much to say about American politics, Islam, homosexuality, freedom of expression and life in the public eye that his play Now Or Later, at the Royal Court until 18 October, can barely contain it all. Its brittle naturalistic structure regularly ruptures, issuing jets of superheated opinion ... http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/now-or-later/ 365 from the National Theatre of Scotland follows a series of teenagers emerging from care, and taking their first steps towards independence in ‘practice flats’. David Harrower’s drama explores the instabilities of identity that assail these young people, abruptly required to cope alone in the real world, attempting to transform ... http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/365/ In December 1978, with the Winter of Discontent in full swing, three generations of a working-class family gather in a living-room in Hull. Patriarch Dad is in denial about his wife’s mental and physical degeneration, full of bellicose jollity about the impending General Strike. And no-one dares let on that ... http://www.londontheatreblog.co.uk/sons-of-york/