stage
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LA Dance Project review – Millepied goes for some Balanchine shineBenjamin Millepied’s young company asserts itself as a future force in dance with this trilogy loosely linked around the theme of precious stones
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Who needs fake blood? Eye-catching ways to play dead on stageTheatre has found all sorts of lively ways to represent death – it’s been done with butchered cabbages and even bright pink blancmange -
Much Ado About Nothing review – shades of The Prisoner in surreal comedyWith a chequerboard lawn, Italianate follies and an audience on garden chairs, Shakespeare’s play is given a Portmeirion-style design -
Plan your week’s theatre: top ticketsThe latest from the brilliant Anthony Neilson opens at the Royal Court, Dundee Rep hosts girls behaving badly, Howard Jacobson relives his Manchester childhood, and the On the Edge festival begins in Birmingham
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'I feel nothing but rage'Leading figures from the arts – including Lucy Prebble, Anish Kapoor, Ivo van Hove and Barrie Rutter – reveal their shock, anger and revulsion at the leave vote
talking points
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Open letter turns spotlight on Berlin Volksbühne theatre's offstage dramaLetter signed by 180 directors, actors and designers decries change in direction at avant garde theatre under new chief
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How performance broke out of the theatre come rain or shineIn getting to parts that other arts don’t reach, outdoor shows attract audiences that genuinely represent the wider population, as a new study finds
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Psst! The dismal truth about theatre's 'secret location' gimmickShows such as Philip Ridley’s Karagula aim to entice audiences with the promise of a mysterious venue. All too often, this has little relevance to the play itself
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Where are Britain's mega-hit musicals to rival Hamilton?Lin-Manuel Miranda’s show is the latest daring, original musical to emerge in the US. Britain lags behind – but the roots of a revival are in place
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Camille O'Sullivan as Constance: 'Thou art not holy'Camille O’Sullivan plays Constance in King John, who laments the loss of her son, Arthur, but disputes the suggestion that she has gone mad
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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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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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Adrian Lester as Hamlet: ‘To be or not to be’Adrian Lester performs Hamlet’s soliloquy in which the prince considers taking his own life
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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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Laura Carmichael as Portia: 'The quality of mercy'Laura Carmichael speaks Portia’s lines from the courtroom scene in The Merchant of Venice, in which she tells the moneylender Shylock to be merciful
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Pas de deux with Veronese in VeniceThe city’s dance biennale makes the most of its spectacular spaces – not least with Shobana Jeyasingh’s Outlander, which responds to the Renaissance masterpiece The Wedding at Cana
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‘I have no gene for shame’With his show, My Family, due for a West End transfer, the comedian tells us why he has no regrets about sharing his parents’ intimate secrets on stage
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Standup is an unpretentious art but too often it's anti-intellectual tooComedians tend to apologise for making any highbrow references in their material. I wish more felt at ease quoting poetry like Liam Williams
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David Cross: Making America Great Again! review – obnoxious, cynical gagsThe Arrested Development star is undoubtedly an adept comic but his political show lacks complexity and suffers from punchlines that strain to shock
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Sarah Millican review – a saucy postcard from smutty countryThe emphasis is relentlessly below the waist in a frank show ostensibly about the comedian embracing rural life
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‘The more experience I have, the harder writing gets’The 29-year-old playwright talks about the pressures of early success, hanging out with Lena Dunham – and co-writing a horror film set in the LA fashion world
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Anna Chancellor: ‘I’m a bit “light ent” for those monumental classic parts’The actress talks about her dream role in The Seagull, her debt to Four Weddings… and why we need more working-class writers
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The £35m all-singing, all-dancing history of BritainEvangelical hedge fund manager Jonathan Ruffer bought Auckland Castle for £15m. Now he’s putting on his first show – with flaming arrows, jousting knights and a 1,000-strong cast
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Mancunians caught in the IRA blast see their stories on stageTwenty years after the Manchester bombing, the immersive theatre show On Corporation Street looks at those caught in the chaos – from the man having a haircut to the couple getting married
polls & quizzes
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How well do you know Hamlet?As Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet gets an NT Live broadcast, test your knowledge of Shakespeare’s princely tragedy
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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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Are you as smart as the Elves who research QI's questions?The hit QI podcast No Such Thing As a Fish separates quite interesting facts from quite impossible ones. But can you tell which of these statements are true or false?
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Trivia, she wrote: how well do you know Angela Lansbury?Broadway sensation, TV detective and three-time Oscar nominee Angela Lansbury turns 90 in October. See if you can detect the correct answers in our quiz
from the archive
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'I’ve written a play about sex that people quite like – that doesn’t make me Dr Ruth'
Patrick Marber 'I’ve written a play about sex that people quite like – that doesn’t make me Dr Ruth'
From the archive: In this 1997 article, the Closer playwright talks about his days as a standup and how theatre is just ‘a stab in the dark’
pictures & video
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Anne-Marie Duff is Miranda's mother in a rewritten TempestThe words of a treasured letter ring in Miranda’s ears as she explores her island home in this re-imagining of The Tempest, written and directed by Teresa Griffiths and narrated by Anne-Marie Duff
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The many faces of Richard IIIIt’s a glorious summer of Richard IIIs with Ralph Fiennes playing the role at the Almeida in London and Lars Eidinger starring in the Schaubühne’s production at the Edinburgh festival. Here are some of the many actors who have tackled Shakespeare’s villain
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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
you may have missed
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How Ann Yee got Andrew Scott and Ralph Fiennes into the grooveShe helped Scott shake his hips like a rock god in Birdland and set Fiennes boogying in A Bigger Splash. For actors, choreographer Ann Yee has all the right moves
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How we staged Shakespeare Chuk Iwuji on Henry VI