Fans and figures from show business pay tribute to pop star who was diagnosed in August 2020 and wrote memoir during her illnessThe pop singer and TV personality Sarah Harding, who had 21 UK Top 10 singles as a member of Girls Aloud, has died aged 39 f…
The arts have had it tough, but critics need to take off the kid gloves
Mediocre productions have been rewarded with glowing reviews during the pandemic. It’s time to be a little less gentleSeen anything good lately? It is a common bit of small-talk, but often a reliable way to find the next play or film worth watching. Th…
Let the storm rage on! Frozen hits the West End – in pictures
Take a look behind the scenes and centre stage of the new musical production of Disney’s fairytale favourite as it opens at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane Continue reading…
This Is Paradise review – gender relations tell a mesmeric story of Northern Ireland
Traverse theatre, EdinburghActor Amy Molloy delivers an elegant monologue that reveals itself as something greater in this supremely thoughtful showKate Regan is a woman defined by the men in her life. There’s her gentle old Belfast dad, disappointed b…
Clowntime review – it’s a crime not to be funny in John Feffer’s dystopia
Online@theSpaceUKGuileless hero Christopher Blank is ‘born without a single funny bone in his body’ in a one-man play that paints a near future US in broad brushstrokesComedians becoming politicians and pundits. Politicians playing the lovable buffoon….
Exit pursued by a marsh harrier: why I wrote a play for nature reserves | Steve Waters
Created deep in the fens of East Anglia, Murmurations is a new drama about conservation in the age of extinctionIt’s not been a great year for playwriting. In March 2020 I was deep in casting for a revival of my plays on climate change, The Contingency…
Colin Bateman: ‘I don’t usually get emotional while writing but this is hugely personal’
The author of dark comic novels such as Divorcing Jack has written a play, Nutcase, drawing on his relationship with his teenage sonAfter writing 34 books (including comedy crime novels such as Divorcing Jack and Driving Big Davie) and numerous movies …
An electric Faust outfit and a pair of kinky boots in V&A’s ‘major refresh’
Most items in the museum’s new theatre and performing arts galleries going on display for the first timeA fabulous red dress and thigh-high leather boots worn by Lola the drag queen in the musical Kinky Boots are to go on display near to what many woul…
I’m finally seeing live shows again – and I feel like a kid in a sweetshop
Kitchen discos and archive performances kept us going – but being stuck at home made me pine for a full houseIn the early months of the pandemic, as the survival instinct of the live arts community performed a macabre two-step with the increasingly gri…
25 Playwrights and their Plays, 1700-1799
Mary Pix (1666-1709): Manchester Metropolitan University recently posted a complete performance (production credits) of Mary Pix’s comedy, The Beau Defeated (1700). The play was also adapted by the Royal Shakespeare Company under the title The Fantasti…