stage
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Robert Icke’s staging has fine performances and intelligent touches but some of its ideas are eccentrically wrong-headed
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This moving verbatim piece about young people in care shows playwright Paddy Campbell’s fine ear for absurdity
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A chamber below Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol is hosting a new version of Orpheus and Eurydice. When does a bold new setting become a gimmick?
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John MacMillan performs unsettling, bleakly humorous monologues for audiences who are herded through this venue’s claustrophobic depths
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George Brant’s electric monologue Grounded was one of the first plays to explore a new form of war. The playwright, actor Lucy Ellinson and director Christopher Haydon recall creating a fringe smash that channelled Top Gun
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David Thacker revives David Rudkin’s rarely performed 1970s play about an infertile Ulsterman and his English wife
talking points
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Shocked by the Brexit vote, the director of the National Theatre embarked on an ambitious countrywide listening project. Rufus Norris explains how everyone from shepherds to shop workers shaped his new production
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With The Godfather and Chinatown, Robert Evans revolutionised the movie industry. Now, Simon McBurney is staging the mogul’s scandalous memoir, The Kid Stays in the Picture. They talk about art, life and America
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Steven Cantor’s intimate documentary about Sergei Polunin exposes the pressures heaped on young prodigies – and has vital lessons for the industry
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Gervais’s new set, Humanity, is pumped with scorn and provocation but the inclusion of more personal material gives a rare glimpse of a gentler man
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After the EU referendum result, Bridget Christie ripped up her Edinburgh show and created a new one in just a few weeks. This is an anatomy of a standup set that has changed with the headlines
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The ex-Bake Off presenter’s show is a droll self-portrait full of nostalgia and juicy tidbits about Paul and Mary. But it’s less standup than love-in with fans
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All standups have angles. But my jokes about being Asian just seem to upset @BritFIrstPete7
Romesh RanganathanOften people just Asian assume Asian that Asian everything you Asian talk about Asian is just the Asian fact that you’re Asian
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The actor and producer joined us live from the National Theatre to weigh in everything from his most-coveted role to which packet of crisps goes best with two pints of lager
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In the 50s, Arthur Miller used 17th-century Salem to comment on the ‘red scare’. His drama is chillingly pertinent in the first weeks of Trump’s presidency
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As Rosencrantz and Guildenstern returns, Tom Stoppard remembers the dandy who wrote it 50 years ago, picks his favourite play – and says he wants to make audiences cry
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Cult US theatre group 600 Highwaymen are putting on their first UK show with a gang of strangers who have rehearsed individually and never met each other
from the archive
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Ahead of her new work, which is based on a profound real-life tragedy, the sought-after choreographer discusses dancing with William Forysthe, motherhood and why there are so few women at the top of her profession
series
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Play timePlay timeEric Idle's The Owl and the Pussycat review – Python primer for kids is a hootThis musical adaptation of Idle’s take on Edward Lear’s much-loved poem is a hummable defence of the spirit nonsense
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In our new series, Michael Billington picks 10 theatrical performances that have etched themselves on his memory. The list begins with Olivier as John Osborne’s Archie Rice
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The funniest thingThe funniest thingSeann Walsh: ‘I wrote a line for The Thick Of It – it's probably my proudest moment’The fun-loving standup and panel show regular on the things that make him laugh the most, from Partridge to sausage
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Shakespeare's plays – as you like themShakespeare's plays – as you like themBest Shakespeare productions: what's your favourite Henry VIII?The play that burned down the Globe theatre in 1613, after a stage cannon ignited the thatch, is a potent farewell to this series, writes Michael Billington
pictures & video
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Scott, best known as Sherlock’s Moriarty, is playing the highest-profile Hamlet since Benedict Cumberbatch took on the role in 2015. Here is a first look at the production
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The Barbican in London is staging a new production of Philip Glass’s dance-opera based on Jean Cocteau’s sensational novel Les Enfants Terribles. Step inside the surreal world of two siblings’ deadly games
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The witches are Colombian, Banquo’s Ghost appears in Mexico and Macbeth’s castle is Croatian in this crowd-sourced version of Shakespeare’s tragedy, performed by schoolchildren from around the world
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Vanessa Redgrave has captivated audiences since her early days at the RSC. She has starred alongside her father, siblings and children, enthralled Broadway and is still commanding the stage today
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The Kibera ballet school is part of Anno’s Africa project, working in slum areas in Kenya. Weekly ballet classes are held in the Spurgeons academy school, with teacher and former dancer Mike Wamaya
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How should you act when you come face-to-face with a potential partner? Make sure you’re brutally honest. Isy Suttie and Stephen Wight demonstrate six ways to check your compatibility
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As he begins rehearsals for Hamlet at the Almeida, take a look at the theatrical career of Andrew Scott
you may have missed
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Barely out of Rada, Tamara Lawrance cruised into TV and stage roles. Now she’s taking on Twelfth Night at the National. Can it beat her weird student version?
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The contestants can belt out a tune but can they cut it in musical theatre? The stage show cast from the BBC1 series will fall flat if it doesn’t find acting talent
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She has blazed a trail from Granada to New York to Paris, rapping, partying and dancing in a latex flamenco dress. Is Britain ready for Blanca Li and her ramshackle dancing robots?
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The National's new season is a staggering dereliction of duty
Michael BillingtonThe NT usually manages a balance between revivals and new work. Now, classic plays are disappearing from its stages – and from regional reps too -
He’s played Sam Cooke, an EastEnders bad boy and a closeted footballer in The Pass. Now, Arinzé Kene has returned to writing plays – and to the violent summer of 2011 – with a searing account of escalating tension in London
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Don’t expect to be in control, never stop looking for the next role: Siân Phillips, Timothy West and Janet Henfrey on how they turned acting into a life’s work
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How do you top a hit play about global politics? By tackling the end of the world – from nuclear meltdown to Brexit and Trump. The writer talks eavesdropping and honesty
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Joanna Vanderham performs Juliet’s speech from the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet
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David Morrissey speaks the opening lines from Richard III in which the scheming Richard lays out his plan to turn his brothers, Clarence and the newly enthroned King Edward IV, against each other
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Riz Ahmed speaks Edmund’s soliloquy from King Lear, in which Edmund reflects upon being an illegitimate son and plots against his half-brother, Edgar
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Ayesha Dharker plays Titania, the queen of the fairies, in a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
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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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Jaques’s speech about the seven ages of man from As You Like It is performed by Zawe Ashton
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