-
3 weeks ago | 
dailymail.co.uk | Patrick Marmion
Apex Predator (Hampstead Theatre, London)Rating:It's a horror show at the Hampstead Theatre. John Donnelly’s muddled new play, ostensibly the tale of a young mother suffering from severe post-natal depression, turns into a one-woman, blood-sucking revenge mission against toxic masculinity. How did it all go wrong?
-
4 weeks ago | 
dailymail.co.uk | Patrick Marmion
North by Northwest (Theatre Royal, York and touring) Verdict: Packs a punch Rating:Alfred Hitchcock is suddenly flavour of the month. But his 1959 classic North By Northwest really ought to be unstageable. It starts out in New York before heading to the Prairies, and reaching its peak on the summit of Mount Rushmore. But all that is just grist to the mill of director Emma Rice in her effortlessly chic new adaptation.
-
1 month ago | 
dailymail.co.uk | Patrick Marmion
Rating:Football's come home again to the National Theatre with James Graham’s funny, sunny and crowd-pleasing homage to the newly knighted Gareth Southgate. Joe Fiennes’s sweet-natured Southgate has been subbed for a tortured Gwilym Lee. But the burning question, two years since its premiere, is whether Gareth from Crawley’s legendary M&S waistcoat has lost its sex appeal? The answer, I fear, is... a little.
-
1 month ago | 
dailymail.co.uk | Patrick Marmion
Clueless (Trafalgar Theatre, London) Verdict: Retro fun Rating:From Legally Blonde to Heathers and Mean Girls, musicalisations of teenage romcoms can seem two a penny these days. But this bangin', big-hearted new staging of the 1995 movie Clueless still has plenty to sing about. That's largely down to the bright and breezy score by Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall.
-
1 month ago | 
dailymail.co.uk | Patrick Marmion
The Seagull (Barbican Theatre, London) Rating:After a string of theatrical duds, misfires and howlers involving Hollywood heavyweights Sigourney Weaver, Rami Malek and Brie Larson, Cate Blanchett was the latest star of the big screen to have a go on the London stage last night. Happily, she stops the rot. But, to be fair, that is thanks in large part to a remarkable ensemble of home-grown talent including the estimable Tom Burke (The Three Musketeers) and Emma Corrin (The Crown).
-
1 month ago | 
dailymail.co.uk | Patrick Marmion
The Last Laugh (Noel Coward Theatre, London and touring) Verdict: Comedy heaven Rating:Hallelujah! There really is a comedy heaven, and within it are the ghosts of Bob Monkhouse, Eric Morecambe and Tommy Cooper. This imaginary paradise – first glimpsed at last year’s Edinburgh Festival – is set (where else) in a yellowing sock of a dressing room.
-
2 months ago | 
dailymail.co.uk | Patrick Marmion
Maybe I'm giving Shakespeare too much credit, but I'm pretty sure there's a reason why he set his great tragedy, Hamlet, in a castle. After all, he did have to accommodate the whole Danish court, an angry mob, a touring theatre company and passing armies. But that, alas, has not deterred the artistic director-elect of London's Old Vic, Rupert Goold, from fearlessly setting the play on a boat. The Titanic, no less; on its way to disaster in 1912.
-
2 months ago | 
dailymail.co.uk | Patrick Marmion
Much Ado About Nothing (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London)Anyone heading to Drury Lane expecting to see Hayley Atwell and Tom Hiddleston in a traditional production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado must go back to their wardrobes. My advice is to dust down those platform boots, dig out a spangly top and pull on a neon wig for, i’faith, this new version of the Bard’s rom-com is a big pink disco boogie.
-
2 months ago | 
dailymail.co.uk | Patrick Marmion
Mike Bartlett’s new play starring Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan from the BBC’s never-ending divorce saga The Split – alongside Erin Doherty (the young Princess Anne from The Crown) — has one of the best trigger warnings you’ll see in theatre: ‘Contains explicit scenes of a sexual nature which some people may find intriguing’. That sums up Bartlett’s play in which Walker and Mangan once again struggle with a warm but failing marriage, dwindling into mid-life tedium.
-
2 months ago | 
dailymail.co.uk | Patrick Marmion
Veteran theatrical provocateur Howard Brenton likes to put real human flesh on the bones of history. He remains most notorious for his 1980 play The Romans In Britain, which prompted Mary Whitehouse to sue the National Theatre for procuring an 'act of indecency', thanks to a scene where a Roman soldier assaults a hapless Celt. Forty-five years later, Brenton is still at it – albeit without such extremes.
