Romeo & Juliet (National Theatre 2021)

“For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.” The summer of 2020 was originally due to bring lovestruck Verona to London’s theatres but, following closures across the world over the past year, it appears that 2021 will do just fine. Rather than postpone their stage run, the National Theatre took the decision to […]

Day 1: “Frailty, thy name is woman”

Ever since I started frequenting the Globe in 2016 and ramped up my Shakespeare intake, I’ve found myself embroiled in arguments over casting – more specifically, gender switches. I know I should leave well alone in the majority of cases, but it can be really hard not to challenge some of the ignorance people spout; […]

Favourite male performances of 2018

There have been so many brilliant performances this year that I simply couldn’t narrow them down enough – and it also didn’t seem fair to restrict things even further, so I’ve split what would usually be one post into two (favourite female performances to follow). Mind the Advent also promoted a few more performances, just […]

Globe 2018: “The rest is silence”

It’s been quite an eye-opener of a season for me. After two of the best years of my life with Emma Rice in charge, I could easily have decided to call it a day myself – it would be fair enough to call it taking a stand against the board. However, given that the traditionalists […]

Globe 2018: “Who’s there?”

Ever since Emma Rice’s shocking and premature resignation prior to her final two seasons at Shakespeare’s Globe, there has been suspense and anticipation over what will happen next. Michelle Terry was named as Rice’s successor in July, and this morning announced an extensive inaugural summer season. The Globe also teased its new branding, with both […]

Favourite shows of 2017

Any number of shows could have been included in this post; frankly it’s ludicrous that I decided to stick with my whole top 12 idea… As I’ve seen about 90 more individual shows than last year, it’s almost a question of picking some of the shows out of a hat to be able to split […]

Favourite performances of 2017

This year variety has been the thing (though I’ve still managed to stack up certain repeat attendances), so that means I’ve seen a serious amount of performers – some even two or three times… So I’ve had incredible difficulty here. That was part of my reasoning as far as Mind the Advent 2017 was concerned; […]

Lions and Tigers

Tanika Gupta’s Lions and Tigers, a new play about her great-uncle Dinesh’s role in the fight for Indian independence, is in the middle of a strictly limited run as part of the Festival of Independence. It plays in the intimate, candlelit settings of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, directed by Pooja Ghai. Born in 1911, Dinesh […]

Day 3: “Life should stop until we’re free”

My second Festival of Independence evening of the week, following on from Nitin Sawhney’s concert on Monday, is Tanika Gupta’s new play Lions and Tigers. I’m ashamed to admit that before all of the commemorations this month I had no real idea about what actually went on at the time. In fact, I’ve given myself […]