Lyn Gardner
Richard III - review
Richard III should probably thank Shakespeare. The playwright may have destroyed his reputation but, in doing so, he ensured the last Plantagenet lived on in the popular imagination.
The Full Monty - review
Screen-to-stage adaptations are two a penny (and often worth even less), but Simon Beaufoy's play, inspired by his own screenplay for the 1997 movie about a group of unemployed Sheffield steelworkers turned strippers, is the full Monty in more than one se
Liar, Liar - review
We are always told that we should tell the truth - but then it didn't do Cordelia in King Lear much good. Fourteen-year-old Grace (Danusia Samal) lives near the Olympic Park with her older sister and her dad, David, who drinks too much. Their mother walThe Vagina Monologues - review
If Nancy Dell'Olio's vagina got dressed up, it would wear Harry Winston diamonds. At least, it would according to Eve Ensler's show, inspired by interviews with hundreds of women about their vaginas. The Vagina Monologues were written in the 1990s, long b
The Vortex - review
Noël Coward didn't just have a talent to amuse: he had a talent to shock. This 1924 play was the Look Back in Anger of its day, a drama that dismayed the upper classes who saw themselves portrayed in all their "vortex of beastliness".
One for the Road - review
Laurie Sansom's tenure at Northampton began with Sondheim's great masterpiece of middle-age regret, Follies. For his leave-taking (Samson is soon off to run the National Theatre of Scotland), he has chosen another story of squandered dreams and mid-life c
Great Expectations - review
A young unknown called Alan Cumming played Pip in Jo Clifford's adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel, first produced for Glasgow's wonderful TAG Theatre back in 1988. That production incorporated dance, but this new version boasts neither that nor CummingMoney: The Gameshow - review
It is said that on the day Lehman Brothers collapsed, US treasury secretary Hank Paulson looked out of his office window, saw the future – and threw up. Queenie and Casino (the names are significant) worry about the future, too. They used to work in the
Gruesome Playground Injuries - review
Gate theatre, London "Does it hurt?" asks eight-year-old Kayleen when she meets classmate, Doug, in the school sick bay. He rode his bike off the school roof and she is suffering from stomach pains. Over the next 30 years we glimpse the pair in A&E depar