The experts: actors on 20 ways to look and feel confident – when you’re anything but
More than 100 artists tell Starmer to halt arms sales to Israel if he becomes PM
May 2024
Robin/Red/Breast review – frights and folklore with a mesmerising Maxine Peake
Daisy Johnson adapts a 1970 TV play into a poetic and disturbing exploration of childbirth’s physical and emotional impact
March 2024
The best theatre to stream this month
The best theatre to stream this month: Peaky Blinders, Prima Facie and more
Our roundup of what to watch at home includes Rambert’s prequel to the hit TV series, Jodie Comer reprising the legal drama and Roald Dahl’s The Magic Finger
December 2023
Leading lights of UK stage call for Israeli release of Palestinian theatre group
Open letter signed by top playwrights, actors and directors demands Israel free members of Freedom theatre
November 2023
Dance First review – Samuel Beckett’s life given the high gloss Hollywood treatment
Vivid portrait of the great playwright of inertia points up the contrast with his real-life romantic entanglements and daring work for the French resistance
August 2023
Audiobook of the week
Kit by Megan Barker audiobook review – the wildness of true friendship laid bare
Maxine Peake narrates a profoundly moving and unsparing hybrid memoir that explores unconditional love, in all its messiness
July 2023
They review – Maxine Peake’s powerful delivery leaves us wanting more
The actor’s controlled inner outrage reels us in with this eerily prescient tale from 1977 of a dystopia in which art is criminalised
June 2023
‘We get braver as we get older’: Maxine Peake on her daring dystopia play performed in a library
Kay Dick’s novel They was almost forgotten – but its dark predictions are eerily prescient. Perfect fodder for Peake and her new company to bring to life in Manchester
April 2023
Christopher Eccleston: it would be impossible for me to become an actor today
Last night at Oldham Coliseum: a joyful, funny and furious farewell
February 2023
Maxine Peake hits out at threat to ‘vital, vibrant’ Oldham Coliseum
Actor accuses government of ‘further dividing communities’ as 138-year-old theatre faces closure after losing £1.8m grant
January 2023
A desire for Streetcar: the enduring allure of Tennessee Williams’s tantalising classic
Paul Mescal and Patsy Ferran battle it out in the Almeida’s new production of a poetic drama whose ambiguity is enthralling
December 2022
Betty! A Sort of Musical review – fitfully funny take on the life of Betty Boothroyd
Betty! A Sort of Musical review – Maxine Peake brings Boothroyd’s story to the stage
January 2022
Observer TV reviews
The week in TV: Euphoria; Rules of the Game; Screw; After Life
Euphoria’s crazy teens return wilder than ever; the BBC’s new workplace drama should’ve kept things at the office; and it’s goodbye to Ricky Gervais’s tonally strange After Life
TV review
Rules of the Game review – Maxine Peake is barnstorming in a rich, meaty murder mystery
There’s more than workplace sexual politics at stake in this tale of harassment, porn and misogyny: this excellent drama is about the reality of women everywhere
TV tonight
TV tonight: Maxine Peake takes on office sexual politics in Rules of the Game
Observer TV reviews
The week in TV: Anne; Four Lives; Mandy; Toast of Tinseltown
TV tonight
TV tonight: Jamie-Lee O’Donnell swaps being a Derry Girl for being a Screw
