Howard Loxton

4 days ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

This is Sondheim’s last musical, the one on which he was still working when he died. His collaborators did a little more work on the book, but these are Sondheim’s music and lyrics. Sondheim’s original inspiration lay in the films of Luis Buñuel. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie provides ideas for the first half of Here We Are as a group of wealthy friends go in search of a meal, and The Exterminating Angel providing the situation into which it puts the same group for the second act.

6 days ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

Faygele is a Yiddish word meaning “little bird” but it is also used as a derogatory word for gay, equivalent to “faggot”, and it is what his dad unthinkingly calls 13-year-old Ari Freed at his bar mitzvah. Shimmy Braun’s play presents a picture of Ari’s struggle as gay teenager growing up in a family of Ultra-Orthodox Jews from then until his suicide at 18, a bar mitzvah photo on display at the side of the stage, his draped coffin centre.

1 week ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

Barney Norris borrows Lorca’s title and the plot outline of the Spanish poets classic, but this is not a direct adaptation but very much his own play. He sets it at the back of the village hall in Edington in Wiltshire. Young couple Georgie and Rob, who are getting married in three weeks time, have come with Rob’s mum Helen to see if it will do for their wedding reception. Helen is clearly concerned that her son is so eager to get married so soon.

1 week ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

Lila Raicek takes her title from the final words of Henrik Ibsen’s play and borrows quite a lot from it, but it is offered as a new play, not as an adaption or updating. Her Henry Solness, like his Halvard, is a successful architect, a Brit in the US with a swish home in the Hamptons (elegantly styled by Richard Kent with views of blue sea and windswept beach lined with long grasses) while his wife, now called Elena, is a successful publishing executive.

2 weeks ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

The Theatre Royal opened its doors on 17 December 1884 with a production of Lytton Strachey’s Richielieu,and Stratford East has been celebrating its 140-year history. This commemoration of Joan Littlewood, who made such a big contribution to that history after she brought her Theatre Workshop company to the then-derelict theatre in 1953, was commissioned as part of the anniversary celebrations. Joan is written by Robert Hayman, who has a long association with this theatre.