My country is not mine unless I want to protect it. Edward Thomas was killed at the battle of Arras in 1917. In the two years leading up to this point he wrote 143 poems, an extraordinary burst of creativity… Read More ›
Month: January 2013
Old Money, Hampstead Theatre, 8th January 2013
At the end of Old Money, Sarah Wooley’s new play at the Hampstead Theatre, the audience clapped and cheered with great enthusiasm. I, however, was left feeling that I’d seen this story before, and seen it executed better. Maureen Lipman is… Read More ›
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Old Vic Tunnels, 6th January 2013
Almost two years ago to the day I went to Wilton’s Music Hall to watch Fiona Shaw perform T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. On that occasion I was struck not only by Shaw’s performance but also by the perfect harmony between text and space, both of which were also achieved in the Young Vic Theatre’s production of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, performed by Shaw and dancer Daniel Hay-Gordon in the Old Vic Tunnels.
Julius Caesar, Donmar Warehouse, 4th January 2013
Given the increasing coverage of the persistent gender imbalance in the arts, the news of the Donmar’s decision to stage an all-female production of Shakespeare’s testosterone-fuelled Julius Caesar was perhaps not wholly surprising. However, the production would have to do more than merely demonstrate that some of Shakespeare’s powerhouse roles could be convincingly played by women.
Out and About in London 