Sad! Is Donald Trump just too boring for a grand Shakespearean makeover?
The 47th review – Bertie Carvel is devilishly good but this Trumpian satire feels too soon
March 2022
‘I get a chill’: Bertie Carvel on exploring the human side of Donald Trump
Of all the baddies Carvel has portrayed on stage and screen, this may be his most challenging yet. He reveals what lies beneath the bombast of The Donald
February 2022
Down the rabbit hole
What links a US TV televangelist to Frank Sidebottom and Rupert Murdoch?
From Jessica Chastain’s new biopic to a James Graham play, take a dive down the rabbit hole with Tammy Faye Bakker
December 2021
Peter Bradshaw's film of the week
The Tragedy of Macbeth review – Denzel Washington delivers a noirish nightmare
Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand hit top form in Joel Coen’s austere reimagining of Shakespeare’s Scottish bloodbath
October 2021
The Q&A
Bertie Carvel: ‘I have hang-ups left over from childhood about my body’
The actor on forgetting his swimming trunks on his first day at senior school, and guiltily watching himself on TV
November 2020
Lockdown culture
Phoenix/The Ghost Caller reviews – spiked satire and phone spooks
Mike Bartlett’s monologue brings us the inner life of a despotic public figure and Luke Barnes’s over-the-phone drama is profoundly creepy
October 2020
TV review
The Sister review – a nail-biting whodunnit that is truly haunting
Bertie Carvel: 'I like playing characters who are massively chipped'
March 2018
Sing when you might be winning: 2018 Olivier award nominees, from Hamilton to Network
The nominations for this year’s Olivier awards are out and Guardian and Observer photographer David Levene captured some of the key contenders backstage
October 2017
Observer New Review Q&A
Tim Minchin: ‘The world feels a bit post-jokes’
The comedian-composer on his children’s book, Australia’s same-sex marriage vote and why he’s glad to be leaving Hollywood
July 2017
Ink review – Bertie Carvel is unmissable as Rupert Murdoch
Carvel is a natural as the media mogul in James Graham’s engrossing play charting the rise of the Sun
June 2017
Ink review – James Graham's riveting account of the birth of the Sun
First-rate drama about Rupert Murdoch’s move into British newspapers in the 1960s gives us no sermons about press ethics
Bertie Carvel: 'His speciality is making monsters and demons understood'
The actor’s former creations include a psychopathic teacher and an adulterous husband, now the son of a former Guardian journalist is to play Rupert Murdoch in a new play, Ink
Summer arts preview 2017
Summer 2017's essential theatre: from the rise of Murdoch's Sun to Dylan's dustbowl blues
The Kids Company inquiry becomes a musical, Olivia Colman and Olivia Williams star as sisters, Sienna Miller and Jack O’Connell hit the roof and rhinoceroses rampage through Edinburgh
May 2017
Martin Freeman and Sarah Lancashire to star in James Graham's Labour party comedy
Labour of Love, to be staged in the West End, is the latest political play by the dramatist who has also written two short scripts about Brexit for the Guardian
August 2016
Strife review – strikingly modern Galsworthy
John Galsworthy’s 1909 drama of industrial woes still resonates in a fine revival by debut director Bertie Carvel
