stage
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Kim Cattrall on her battle with insomnia: 'I was in a void'Former Sex and the City actor describes debilitating condition that forced her to quit starring role on London stage last year -
JK Rowling asks Harry Potter fans not to reveal plot of West End playAuthor pleads with critics and those attending previews ‘to keep the secrets’ of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child -
Richard III? He's a rock star, a standup comedianIn the German director’s Schaubühne production, there’s a drum kit on stage, the princes are puppets and the battle scene features Richard alone in his pants
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The Taming of the Shrew review – a lovable take on a dislikable playAoife Duffin is an electrifying Kate in Caroline Byrne’s splendid Irish version, which injects touches of Yeats, Wilde and Beckett
talking points
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I’m not sure you can set Shakespeare anywhere, or at any timeLesley Manville as a post-punk shepherdess, Juliet Stevenson in pinstripes and a forest of silk … the designer behind the RSC’s As You Like It in 1985 explains his approach to the plays
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How theatre is moving at the speed of soundLong treated as a final flourish, sound design is now sitting at the heart of theatre productions – and new technology means it can make drama more tense and terrifying than ever before
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Why did American Psycho get the chop during Broadway's banner year?The adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s modern classic couldn’t survive in a competitive theater landscape where only the very best is good enough
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Donmar Warehouse to build temporary theatre for all-female Shakespeare trilogySeason comprising Julius Caesar, Henry IV and The Tempest to be staged at 420-seat venue next to King’s Cross station
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Ayesha Dharker as Titania: ‘The forgeries of jealousy’Ayesha Dharker plays Titania, the queen of the fairies, in a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
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Sacha Dhawan as Parolles: 'Are you meditating on virginity?'In a speech taken from the first scene of All’s Well That Ends Well, Sacha Dhawan’s Parolles stresses the importance of losing one’s virginity
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David Threlfall as Prospero: 'Our revels now are ended'David Threlfall speaks Prospero’s speech in which the sorcerer contemplates the end of life – and the playwright, perhaps, considers the end of his career
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Zawe Ashton as Jaques in As You Like It: ‘All the world’s a stage’ – videoJaques’s speech about the seven ages of man from As You Like It is performed by Zawe Ashton
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Joanna Vanderham as Juliet: ‘The mask of night is on my face’Joanna Vanderham performs Juliet’s speech from the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet
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Daniel Mays as Macbeth: 'Is this a dagger which I see before me?'Daniel Mays speaks Macbeth’s lines from Act II, Scene 1, in which he sees a murder weapon in a hallucination
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Shape-shifting: 90 years of RambertThe mould-breaking dance company is celebrating its ninth decade. We trace the nimble steps that took it from a raggle-taggle bunch of students to global name
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Jamie Demetriou: 'The funniest word? Toilet'From Liza Minnelli to bland cake, the comedian reveals the things that make him laugh the most
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Fun factory: the finest comedy of summer 2016David Baddiel airs his own family’s failings, Bridget Christie grapples with a Motörhead vibrator, there’s a raft of improv – and Mr Swallow recreates Houdini’s finest escape
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It's the one time I'm confidentJeremy Corbyn, pervy sexual tension, tiny horned hamsters... improv comedy star Greg Proops is used to chucking anything into the mix. As he begins a London run of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, he reveals the show’s secret sauce
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My Family: Not the Sitcom review – David Baddiel is breathtakingly honestNothing is out of bounds in David Baddiel’s new standup, which exposes his father’s dementia and his mother’s hyperactive sex life to the same affectionate scrutiny
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The first interviewThe author, director John Tiffany and playwright Jack Thorne spent two years collaborating on The Cursed Child. Here, they give an exclusive interview before curtain up…
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‘The world didn’t know if Snowden was a hero or traitor’The playwright on his new play, Wild, inspired by Edward Snowden’s leaks and his forthcoming series Press, about the aftermath of phone hacking
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Turning the Royal Exchange into a northern powerhouseVia bold collaborations with Maxine Peake and a ruthless self-analysis, Sarah Frankcom has shrugged off the ‘regional theatre’ tag. She explains why ‘it’s good to scare yourself’
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Meet the understudies who steal the showSheridan Smith and Glenn Close are among the stars whose stand-ins have recently wowed audiences. From the panic to the euphoria, understudies describe the delirious experience of replacing an A-lister
polls & quizzes
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Match the stage directions to the play
Here are 10 striking stage directions – can you identify the plays they're taken from?
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Do you know your Oedipus from your Antigone?
Are you a titan of the theatre or have the fates abandoned you? As the Almeida puts on a festival inspired by Dionysus, test your knowledge of Greek drama
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Playwrights describe their characters: can you identify them?
Sometimes the description of a character in the stage directions says as much as lines of dialogue. Do you recognise these eight figures as described by the playwrights who created them?
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Everyday Shakespeare
Many of Shakespeare's lines are used in daily life – but do you know which plays feature these popular expressions?
from the archive
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Kenneth Tynan at the Observer: his first theatre column
Sixty years after the former Observer drama critic began his column, we're revisiting some of his classic articles. Here's his first one, in which he reflects upon replacing Ivor Brown
pictures & video
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'The Royal Court is where I found out who the hell I was'In this archive video, filmed in 2015, Alan Rickman remembers visiting the Royal Court as a teenager and taking Rachel Corrie’s parents to see the play based on their daughter’s diaries
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Vicky McClure unleashes hell as Lady MacbethThis is England star Vicky McClure is possessed by evil in this nightmarish manga take on Macbeth, the fourth of the British Council’s films for Shakespeare Lives 2016, a global programme celebrating William Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of his death
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Designing Harry Potter and the Cursed ChildFrom Hogwarts robes to Hermione’s wand: take a look at some of the designs for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which begins previews at the Palace theatre, London, in June
you may have missed
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Kneehigh stage the Chagalls' romanceThere are few more vivid evocations of how it feels to fall for someone than in Chagall’s ecstatic paintings of his wife. As Kneehigh’s production about the pair opens at Bristol Old Vic, Daniel Jamieson retraces the couple’s story
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Peter Shaffer wanted to make elaborate theatre – and he succeeded