Andrew Scott: sex scenes less ‘embarrassing’ for audience if one actor plays both characters
The Fleabag star, who took all eight roles in the solo show Vanya, says intimate scenes on stage can be discomfiting for viewers
October 2023
Trueman and the Arsonists review – timely revival of 50s dystopia
Roundhouse, London Simon Stephens’ adaptation of Max Frisch play about bourgeois indifference to a rising crisis should ring loud bells, but its absurdism fails to resonate
June 2023
Fleabag star Andrew Scott to bring one-man Uncle Vanya to West End
Vanya, adapted by Simon Stephens, will see Scott tackle all of the characters in Chekhov’s play
February 2023
Song from Far Away review – Will Young acts with melodic grace in poignant monologue
Will Young: ‘I’m locked out of my social media because I get drunk and slag people off’
December 2021
Robert Holman, ‘extraordinary and influential’ playwright, dies aged 69
Tributes paid to British dramatist acclaimed for works including German Skerries, Across Oka and A Breakfast of Eels
July 2021
The week in theatre: Bach & Sons; Out West – review
Simon Russell Beale is Bach to his fingertips in Nina Raine’s intermittently brilliant new play
June 2021
Out West review – compelling trio of dramas reframes place and race
Reopening culture
Triple threat: Out West at the Lyric Hammersmith – in pictures
May 2021
Reopening culture
From McKellen’s Hamlet to a comic Hullabaloo: what to see as theatres and comedy clubs reopen
As stage shows return, we pick the best post-lockdown offerings – featuring Egyptian gods, rebelling vicars, dancing youths ... and Ian McKellen playing the Dane at 82
February 2021
Lockdown culture
The lockdown boom in audio plays: 'it's drama the pandemic can’t touch'
Mike Bartlett, Alan Ayckbourn, Adjoa Andoh and other top theatre-makers reflect on why listening to drama is perfect for our times
August 2020
Blindness review – Juliet Stevenson rages between your ears
There is no escape for an audience all wearing headphones from this menacing adaptation of José Saramago
March 2020
Lockdown culture
All the world's a page: the joy of scripts during theatre's shutdown
As venues close due to Covid-19, there’s a world of published drama to savour, from text that falls off the page to Alan Ayckbourn’s ‘undirectable’ collage
November 2019
The week in theatre: Light Falls; The Antipodes; Botticelli in the Fire – review
Sarah Frankcom signs off in Manchester with elegiac Simon Stephens and a little bit of Jarvis Cocker
October 2019
Light Falls review – Simon Stephens' guilt-ridden love letter to the north
Sarah Frankcom says her farewell as the Exchange’s artistic director with this moving testament to the power of family life
September 2019
Best culture of the 21st century
The 50 best theatre shows of the 21st century
A hip-hop history lesson, a dizzy Dahl musical and a continent-hopping barbershop … we pick the finest new works of theatre since 2000
June 2019
Jarvis Cocker to compose music for Manchester Royal Exchange's new season
Cocker to collaborate on new Simon Stephens play, while Lucy Ellinson to play Macbeth and Neil Bartlett to stage 24-hour work on Remembrance Sunday
October 2018
From Rebus to The Real Inspector Hound: theatre detectives – in pictures
With Ian Rankin’s brooding Edinburgh tec making his stage debut at Birmingham Rep, we look back at some other theatrical sleuths
March 2018
A bunch of amateurs? Playwrights' astonishing am-dram experiences
David Eldridge, Simon Stephens and Alecky Blythe have all been moved by watching non-professional productions of their plays. They explain the appeal
November 2017
Chekhov's revolutions: the Russian master still speaks to a world in flux
On the centenary of the Russian revolution, a glut of revivals show Chekhov’s characters struggling to adjust to the social earthquakes that engulf them
