michaelbillington
Trevor Griffiths: Mancunian Marxist whose political plays deserve revival
Griffiths, who has died aged 88, explored the conflict between reform and revolution in plays and scripts from the film Reds to dramas such as Occupations, The Party and Comedians
Michael Billington
02, Apr, 2024 @10:40 AM
Letters: John Savident obituary
Michael Billington writes: John Savident urged me to sharpen my prose style and improve my dress sense
Michael Billington and Nick Fulcher
13, Mar, 2024 @5:29 PM
Edward Bond: a phenomenal talent who upturned theatre with his explosive plays
One of the greatest dramatists of the 20th century, Bond – who has died aged 89 – confronted audiences with ‘the crisis in the human species’
Michael Billington
05, Mar, 2024 @12:03 PM
Great expectations and a bleak house: the promise and perils of staging Dickens
London Tide at the National Theatre is the latest in a flood of Dickensian adaptations. Few have captured the novelist’s surreal imagination – are solo shows the most successful?
Michael Billington
03, Mar, 2024 @6:05 PM
Long Day’s Journey Into Night: a grand masterpiece and an ordinary family drama
Eugene O’Neill’s mighty drama, returning to the West End with Brian Cox and Patricia Clarkson, has drawn generations of stage greats and casts its spell with a story we can all recognise
Michael Billington
19, Feb, 2024 @8:00 PM
Ian McKellen’s new Hamlet shows the screen can outdo the stage - Michael Billington
Sean Mathias has reimagined his 2021 production of Shakespeare’s tragedy as a movie, inventively using Windsor’s Theatre Royal and capturing McKellen’s subtle performance
Michael Billington
12, Feb, 2024 @6:00 AM
The many faces of Falstaff: Shakespeare’s tragicomic knight is as complex as Hamlet
Ian McKellen follows in the footsteps of David Warner and Antony Sher as he takes on a character who has been played as wittily jovial and cruelly cunning
Michael Billington
18, Jan, 2024 @9:34 AM
Front row at the wedding from hell: a toast to theatre’s marital ding-dongs
Party punch-ups, brides in disguise, simmering family rancour … playwrights have cordially invited audiences to some nightmarish nuptials
Michael Billington
10, Jan, 2024 @9:00 AM
Seeking Michael Hastings, the missing man of British theatre
Best known for writing Tom and Viv, Hastings made his debut as a teenage dramatist in the 1950s. Now, his vivid ‘young man’s play’ Don’t Destroy Me is back
Michael Billington
05, Jan, 2024 @12:31 PM
From Joe Egg to Noises Off, Michael Blakemore was a superb craftsman of theatre
One of the great postwar theatre directors, Blakemore – who has died aged 95 – had a vast range and was a formidable writer
Michael Billington
13, Dec, 2023 @4:40 PM
Oh, what a beautiful evening – but this ritzy Rodgers and Hammerstein tribute could have been radical | Michael Billington
A superb, starry cast in the West End paid homage to the musical duo behind Carousel, Oklahoma! and South Pacific. If only the concert had also addressed their shows’ contradictions
Michael Billington
13, Dec, 2023 @2:51 PM
Who comes first – playwright or director? It depends which country you’re in
Katie Mitchell has compared her experiences of hierarchies in British and German theatre. Our strength has always lain in honouring the text
Michael Billington
24, Nov, 2023 @5:28 PM
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