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News: NT launches new streaming service National Theatre at Home

The National Theatre, in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, has today launched  National Theatre at Home, a brand-new streaming platform making their much-loved productions available online to watch anytime, anywhere worldwide.

Launching today with productions including the first ever National Theatre Live, Phèdre with Helen Mirren,  Othello  with Adrian Lester and the Young Vic’s Yerma with Billie Piper, new titles from the NT’s unrivalled catalogue of filmed theatre will be added to the platform every month.

In addition to productions previously broadcast to cinemas by National Theatre Live, a selection of plays filmed for the NT’s Archive will be released online for the first time through National Theatre at Home, including Lucy Kirkwood’s Mosquitoes with Olivia Colman and Inua Ellams’ new version of Chekhov’s Three Sisters (a co-production with Fuel).   Continue reading “News: NT launches new streaming service National Theatre at Home”

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News: amazing cast announced for the Young Vic’s The New Tomorrow

Kwame Kwei-Armah, Artistic Director of the Young Vic, today announces the cast of The New Tomorrow, a weekend of pop-up performances celebrating the Young Vic’s 50th birthday. The New Tomorrow – the first piece of live theatre at the Young Vic since the pandemic closed UK theatres in March – will interrogate the change that has come and is coming, and what the next 50 years might hold.

Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́, Adjoa Andoh, Matthew Dunster, Paapa Essiedu, Martina Laird, Anoushka Lucas and Sophie Stone will perform short works from writers and artists Jade Anouka, Marina Carr, Jasmine Lee-Jones, Ruth Madeley, Amy Ng, Stef Smith, Jack Thorne, Isobel Waller-Bridge and Steve Waters, directed by Young Vic Genesis Fellow and Associate Director Jennifer Tang. The performance will be hosted by Kwame Kwei-Armah, and also feature speeches from activists Shahidha Bari and Tom Gill, with Kwame Kwei-Armah Jr. as DJ. Continue reading “News: amazing cast announced for the Young Vic’s The New Tomorrow”

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Happy 50th Birthday to the Young Vic

Kwame Kwei-Armah, Artistic Director of the Young Vic, has announced the start of the Young Vic’s 50th birthday with a year-long programme of work entitled We are the New Tide, dedicated to the theatre’s milestone birthday.

The 50th birthday year of work begins with three major commissions:

[Show thumbnails]
  • YV 50thProjection Project – a projection celebrating the people and productions from across five extraordinary decades, illuminating the front of the Young Vic building each evening, with video design by Duncan McLean – check out just some of those productions in the gallery above.

    From 11 Sept – 4 October, 7.30pm – 10.30pm daily except Sundays, free.

  • The Unforgotten –an interactive outdoor art installation commemorating trailblazers Mary Seacole, Marsha P. Johnson and Ulric Cross. Furthering the conversation within the Black Lives Matter movement, the Young Vic community will be invited to contribute to the installation by submitting their own nominations in writing on the side of the building and online, asking us all to (re)consider who we celebrate as our heroes. Created by artists Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey and Anna Fleischle.
    From 11 September, free.
  • The New Tomorrow– for the first piece of live theatre since the pandemic closed UK theatres, this weekend festival of speeches and monologues asks what the next fifty years hold. Writers and artists Jade Anouka, Marina Carr, Jasmine Lee-Jones, Ruth Madeley, Amy Ng, Stef Smith, Jack Thorne, Isobel Waller-Bridge and Steve Waters will explore the change that has come and is coming. Cast to be announced.
    3 & 4 October, 4pm, Main House, free
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The winners of the 9th annual Mousetrap Awards

BEST FEMALE PERFORMER AWARD:

WINNER – Laura Baldwin, as Dawn in Waitress
Sophie Evans, as Glinda in Wicked
Leah Harvey, as Hortense in Small Island
Miriam-Teak Lee, as Juliet in & Juliet

BEST MALE PERFORMER AWARD:

WINNER – David Hunter, as Dr Pomatter in Waitress
Laurie Kynaston, as Nicolas in The Son
Wendell Pierce, as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman
Jac Yarrow, as Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Continue reading “The winners of the 9th annual Mousetrap Awards”

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News: National Theatre at Home Phase 3

The National Theatre has today announced further productions that will be streamed live on YouTube every Thursday at 7PM BST via the National Theatre’s YouTube channel as part of National Theatre at Home; the new initiative to bring content to the public in their homes during the Coronavirus outbreak. The titles announced today include productions from partner theatres which were previously broadcast to cinemas by National Theatre Live. Continue reading “News: National Theatre at Home Phase 3”

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News: how much Ruth Wilson is too much Ruth Wilson?

Ruth Wilson to star in the UK premiere of The Second Woman at the Young Vic, a co-production with LIFT Festival

This is a trick question obviously, since you can never have too much Ruth Wilson. That said, this assumption will be tested by The Second Woman, in which she plays the exact same scene over and over with 100 different men, a production which thus lasts for a full 24 hours.

Taking inspiration from the 1977 John Cassavetes film Opening Night, the show “sits at the intersection of performance, video and film” and it really is a unique opportunity to see the two-time Olivier award-winner, Golden Globe winner, and Tony and BAFTA nominated Wilson. It’ll be quite the feat of endurance to watch it all too, so naturally yours truly will be at the Young Vic fighting the battle to stay awake for the whole damn thing! Continue reading “News: how much Ruth Wilson is too much Ruth Wilson?”

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Nominees for the 9th annual Mousetrap Awards

The nominees for the 9th annual Mousetrap Awards are announced

These awards are voted for by young people, anyone aged 15-29 is invited to have their say as to who should pick up the trophies at the ceremony on Sunday 19th April. And while usual suspects Dear Evan Hansen, Waitress and & Juliet are leading the pack, it is nice to see such love for Small Island here too.

Mousetrap Theatre Projects strive to make London’s theatre scene accessible to young people, low-income families, mainstream and SEND state schools, and those with additional needs.

Voting is open until midnight on 23rd March via this link. Continue reading “Nominees for the 9th annual Mousetrap Awards”

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Review: Nora – A Doll’s House, Young Vic

Stef Smith takes Ibsen as a fertile starting point for her new version Nora: A Doll’s House at the Young Vic

“Nora, what have you done”

Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House in 1879 but from 1918 to 1968 and then to 2018, stories like Nora’s endure. That’s the thesis of Stef Smith’s Nora: A Doll’s House, a radical new version that splits its narrative voice in three (and everyone knows how good that can be for a play (qv Emilia, Anatomy of a Suicide).

And it’s a smart move in many ways, drawing as much attention to the progression for feminism in the time periods as how little some other things (men?) have changed. Enfranchisement, contraception, gay rights, they all have huge societal impact but when social and class strictures remain in place, what freedom is there really? Continue reading “Review: Nora – A Doll’s House, Young Vic”

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Critics’ Circle Awards 2019: the winners in full

The Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer 
Sam Tutty for Dear Evan Hansen 
Noël Coward Theatre

The Trewin Award for Best Shakespearean Performance
Hammed Animashaun for A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Bridge Theatre 

Most Promising Playwright
Jasmine Lee-Jones for seven methods of killing kylie jenner
Royal Court

The Peter Hepple Award for Best Musical
Come From Away
Phoenix Theatre

Best Designer
Tom Scutt for A Very Expensive Poison
Old Vic 

Best Director
Jamie Lloyd for Evita, Betrayal & Cyrano de Bergerac
Open Air Theatre, Harold Pinter Theatre & Playhouse Theatre

Best Actress
Juliet Stevenson for The Doctor
Almeida Theatre 
and
Sharon D Clarke for Death of a Salesman
Young Vic & Piccadilly Theatre

Best Actor
Andrew Scott for Present Laughter
Old Vic

The Michael Billington Award for Best New Play
A Very Expensive Poison
Old Vic 

Special Award
Paule Constable for services to theatre

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Not-really-a-review: Fairview, Young Vic

I went back to Fairview at the Young Vic

“You have told me every story I’ve ever heard”

I still can’t work out what I want to say about Fairview, a show that by its very nature demands that you don’t give anything away about it (even though saying this itself feels like a heightening of expectation you could do without).

So why not read this piece from Gal-dem instead.

Running time: 90 minutes (without interval)
Photos: Marc Brenner
Fairview is booking at the Young Vic until 23rd January, a returns queue is in operation every night