Tartuffe review – lavish arrival of Frank McGuinness’s take on Molière
Placing modern tech in the baroque setting, Caitríona McLaughlin’s production emphasises artifice but leaves the central message unmoored
November 2022
Dinner With Groucho review – table for two mismatched geniuses
Frank McGuinness conjures the bizarre but real encounter between TS Eliot and the Marx brother in a leaden piece a talented cast can’t save
April 2021
Lockdown culture
The Visiting Hour review – Frank McGuinness’s moving care-home drama
Stephen Rea and Judith Roddy give beautifully nuanced performances as a father and daughter meeting during the Covid-19 pandemic
October 2016
Donegal review – Frank McGuinness's ballad for a singing, squabbling family
Musician Jackie returns to his manipulative kin in Ireland, but a terrific cast can’t quite make us care about their various resentments
May 2016
Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme review – full of rage
Jeremy Herrin’s touring revival focuses on the stridency and the heavy tragedy of the 1985 Frank McGuinness play – at the expense of its subtlety
August 2015
Paperback writer
Frank McGuinness: 'One thing I’ll say about my home town, we could keep our secrets'
In my novel Arimathea, an Italian painter arrives in 50s Donegal to paint the Stations of the Cross – to the locals, he could have come from Mercury
July 2015
Observer TV reviews
The week in TV: Married at First Sight; A Song for Jenny; Crossing Lines; The Affair
TV and radio blog
Frank McGuinness on BBC1's 7/7 drama A Song for Jenny: 'I broke down'
October 2014
The Guardian profile
Kristin Scott Thomas: actor of many layers for whom the play’s the thing
Star who announced this year that she had turned her back on cinema sinks her teeth into the role of Electra
May 2014
Thebans; Brett Dean UK premiere/Britten Sinfonia – review
Thebans review – Julian Anderson's dazzling new opera for ENO
April 2014
Frank McGuinness: how I turned Oedipus into an opera
For his first opera, Frank McGuinness has turned Sophocles's Oedipus trilogy into a single piece. He explains how his own family and politics helped him tap into Thebans' themes of vengeance and murder
October 2013
The Hanging Gardens – review
A manipulative patriarch's decline into dementia is seen from the perspectives of his adult children in a play that isn't quite fleshed out, writes Helen Meany
July 2013
Dublin theatre festival to mark Waiting for Godot's 60th anniversary
Samuel Beckett masterpiece joins new Frank McGuinness play and new version of The Threepenny Opera on programme
July 2012
NI Opera Shorts – review
Five snapshots of life on the edge and one stunning new venue provide plenty to cheer in Belfast, writes Fiona Maddocks
June 2012
The Matchbox – review
The Last of the Haussmans; The Match Box; Minsk, 2011: A Reply to Kathy Acker – review
September 2011
Someone Who'll Watch Over Me – review
A distance of two decades and the events that have taken place in the meantime lend Frank McGuinness's imprisonment drama a fresh piquancy, writes Clare Brennan
April 2010
The best performance I've ever seen
The best performance I've ever seen: Frank McGuinness
Frank McGuinness describes the power of Maureen Toal's performance as the mother in Arthur Miller's All My Sons
March 2010
Theatre picks of the week
Chronicles Of Long Kesh | tfd | Sisters | The White Guard | The Long Road | The Catastrophe Trilogy | National Review Of Live Arts | And Did Those Feet
