Howard Loxton

3 weeks ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

Nicholas Hytner’s acclaimed 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream returns to The Bridge in this spirited revival. It is a promenade production with the stalls audience roaming the flat floor in which multiple sections will rise to make action visible, played out on a variety of bedsteads to emphasise the dream, as fairies cavort acrobatically overhead on hanging silk swings. Bunny Christie’s design works wonderfully, its technical challenges brilliantly handled by the stage crew.

3 weeks ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

Terence Rattigan was expert at showing the feeling hidden behind British reticence, but in this 1973 play, it takes a long time to see past the obnoxious behaviour of book critic Sebastian Cruttwell. Unable to sustain his early success as a novelist, he has a successful career assessing others for a posh Sunday paper. He claims to be a Marxist but behaves like a mandarin. He treats people like lackeys, especially his wife Lydia.

3 weeks ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

When Yale student Max Ritvo applied for a place on Sarah Ruhl’s playwriting workshop, his letter went into the reject pile, but Professor Ruhl pulled it out and found a place for the self-described “poet and comedian”. Their student and mentor relationship developed into a deep friendship.

4 weeks ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

This is a chance to catch up with a frolicsome Sondheim rarity with a long history. Heralded by trumpets and the bouncing rhythm of its opening "Fanfare", it is a tongue-in-cheek celebration that reaches out to the audience. Aristophanes wrote The Frogs in 405 BC when it won the prize for best comedy at the Lenaia festival in honour of Dionysos, god of wine and of theatre. Athens was in the middle of the Peloponnesian War and not doing well, the world in a bit of a mess.

1 month ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

The Act in this case is the Local Government Act of 1988, passed when the country was led by Margaret Thatcher, Section 28 of which instructed that local authorities "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".