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Stage

  • On guard … The Divine Mrs S.

    ‘We still haven’t cracked it!’
    How much does a play change during previews?

    It is a fraught time of cuts, rewrites – and alcohol. Our writer goes behind the scenes at The Divine Mrs S just as the official opening night looms and not everyone’s ready to face the music
  • ‘It was crazy and it was freezing’ … Lil Nas X’s tastefully pixelated Industry Baby video.

    ‘They're not ashamed of their bodies’
    Sean Bankhead on his raunchy dances for Beyoncé, Cardi B, Lil Nas X and more

  • Dauda Ladejobi and Graham Mackay-Bruce in Kiss Marry Kill.

    Kiss Marry Kill
    A truth-is-stranger-than-fiction tale of love behind bars

  • Connor Sparrowhawk

    ‘People like Connor are still left to die in squalor’
    The truth, joy and tragedy behind Laughing Boy

  • 1884 by Rhianna Ilube and Coney at Shoreditch Town Hall, London.

    1884
    Interactive theatre game invites the neighbours over to resist fascism

  • Boys on the Verge of Tears.

    Boys on the Verge of Tears
    A whistle-stop tour of bewildered masculinity

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Reviews

  • Michael Hugo pulling a face as he's pulling, or being pulled by someone in front of him. Behind him looking worried are Lucinda Freeburn, Declan Wilson and Gareth Cooper.

    One Man, Two Guvnors review – this exemplary staging outdoes the original

    A first-rate cast delight in controlled chaos of the highest order in Conrad Nelson’s seamless revival of Richard Bean’s hit play
  • Bella Maclean (Bella Wilfer) in London Tide

    The week in theatre: London Tide; The Comeuppance; Gunter – review

  • the dancers of Shechter II in From England With Love.

    Hofesh Shechter: From England With Love; International Draft Work – review

  • The Ballad of Hattie and James review – a musical friendship comes back into tune

  • The Cord review – daggers of judgment as a birth rocks a family

  • Liberation Squares review – polemic comedy about state surveillance

  • London Tide review – Dickens and PJ Harvey team up for a melodrama as murky as the Thames

  • Cheeky Little Brown review – raucous solo show about a splintering friendship

  • The Girls of Slender Means review – Muriel Spark’s postwar tale told with zingy wit

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Dance

  • choreographer Arlene Phillips

    Arlene Phillips at 80: on Strictly, scandal, survival – and still being a sizzling hot choreographer

    She outraged Mary Whitehouse, worked with Tina Turner, Elton John and Freddie Mercury, and is up for an Olivier for choreographing a smash hit production of Guys & Dolls. Will she ever slow down? Not likely ...
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Comedy

  • ‘I don’t want anyone to walk away thinking they’ve learned something’ … Lorna Rose Treen.

    Lorna Rose Treen: ‘Someone shouted along to one of my jokes, like I was a band’

  • Charlie George

    ‘Maybe everybody feels socially awkward’: the standups turning being autistic into a comedy superpower

  • A special place in people’s hearts … Janey Godley.

    Janey review – behind-the-scenes doc shows standup at her hilarious and heartfelt best

  • Jerrod Carmichael on Saturday Night Live in 2022.

    Jerrod Carmichael is a superb standup – if only he’d stop checking his phone on stage

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Theatre

  • ‘Through the years I’ve resisted offers to play John Falstaff’ … Ian McKellen as the drunk knight.

    Ian McKellen’s Player Kings to tour England

  • Imelda Staunton in 2019.

    ‘Am I playing Dolly Parton? I’m flattered!’ Imelda Staunton launches Hello, Dolly! in London

  • Actors from Mariupol theatre

    ‘Our destroyed theatre’s heart still beats’: Mariupol’s actors return to the stage, two years on

  • Betty Cook

    ‘It was hard – but there was lots of laughter’: women’s stories of the miners’ strike told on tour

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Pictures & video

  • Joseph Sissens rehearsing Dark With Excessive Bright at Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House

    Dark With Excessive Bright: the Royal Ballet’s giant leap into immersive dance

  • Chita Rivera in 1999.

    Chita Rivera – a life in pictures

    The Broadway star has died aged 91. Revisit her glittering career, including West Side Story, Chicago and Kiss of the Spider Woman
  • Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Image shot 1960. Exact date unknown.<br>KPH2P7 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Image shot 1960. Exact date unknown.

    Shirley Anne Field: a life in pictures

    The actor best known for her role in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, has died aged 87. Here we look back at her life and career
  • Zephaniah used his career to address political injustice through poetry

    2:03

    The life and rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah – video obituary

  • Louis McCartney (Henry Creel), Ella Karuna Williams (Patty Newby) - photo by Manuel Harlan Stranger Things: The First Shadow production images

    The West End turns upside down … Stranger Things: The First Shadow

  • A scene from Lunar Halo by Cloud Gate at Sadler's Wells.

    Lunar Halo by Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan

  • Posters for The Curious Incident, The White Devil and Coriolanus

    National Theatre at 60, from Hamlet to Dear England – in posters

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You may have missed

  • Isabelle Huppert

    Isabelle Huppert: ‘I was never the woman behind the man… the only place I could take was the main place’

  • An RSC First Encounters with Shakespeare workshop at a Warwickshire primary school

    ‘Barely hanging on’: England’s cultural jewels fall into the red

    New arts lobby group says plight that hits even top bodies such as Royal Shakespeare Company makes entire country poorer
  • Behind the scenes with Sarah Jessica Parker as she prepares for her role as KAREN NASH / MURIEL TATE / NORMA HUBLEY in Plaza Suite at the Savoy Theatre, London. London. Photograph by David Levene 25/2/24. Additional processing by David McCoy, Guardian Imaging.

    Sarah Jessica Parker, Joseph Fiennes and other stars reveal their secret dressing room routines

    Whoever wins next month’s Olivier awards, global stars will continue to flock to the West End of London to give the stage their all. We take a peek behind the curtain …
  • An event at the 2019 Vault festival under Waterloo Station.

    ‘We are devastated’: London’s Vault festival to close after funding falls through

  • Charlotte Higgins

    Arts funding has collapsed under 14 years of Tory rule. Here are three ways Labour can fix it

    Charlotte Higgins
  • ‘We needed a space to build a future’ … Dance House, Helsinki.

    ‘It’s a beehive’: Tero Saarinen’s mighty Macbeth puts Helsinki’s first dance house on the map

  • Nicola Benedetti extending her arms on stage

    Edinburgh festival slashes ticket prices to increase youth participation

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