“Trojan Horse” at the Battersea Arts Centre
Media hysteria needs good branding. So when in March 2014 an email letter was leaked to the press,...
Read MoreAleks Sierz FRSA is a British theatre critic. He is author of In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today (Faber, 2001), The Theatre of Martin Crimp (Methuen, 2006), John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (Continuum, 2008) and Rewriting the Nation: British Theatre Today (Methuen, 2011). He has also written, co-authored with Lia Ghilardi, The Time Traveller’s Guide to British Theatre: The First Four Hundred Years (Oberon, 2015). His latest book is Good Nights Out: A History of Popular British Theatre 1940–2015 (Methuen, 2019). Sierz has written for publications including Tribune, The Arts Desk and The Stage, as well as newspapers such as The Independent.
Posted by Aleks Sierz | 10th Jan 2020 | Adaptation, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Media hysteria needs good branding. So when in March 2014 an email letter was leaked to the press,...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 7th Jan 2020 | London, Review, United Kingdom
Family dramas are a staple of British new writing, but as well as talking about our nearest and...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 22nd Dec 2019 | London, Review, United Kingdom
Eve Leigh is an experimental playwright who has tackled difficult issues for more than a decade....
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 8th Dec 2019 | Documentary Theatre, Playwriting, Review, United Kingdom, United States of America
Today, we call it soft power. During the Cold War it was more like success at any cost—and by any...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 1st Dec 2019 | London, Playwriting, Review, United Kingdom
Naturalism is both the best thing about British theatre, being democratic and comprehensible by...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 30th Nov 2019 | London, Review, United Kingdom
Some news stories have a very long half-life. Their power to shock does not diminish; they...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 28th Nov 2019 | London, Review, Theatre and Age, United Kingdom
Actor Miriam Margolyes is a phenomenon. Not only has this Dickensian specialist starred in...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 24th Nov 2019 | Documentary Theatre, London, Review, Turkey, United Kingdom
Truth is the first casualty of war, and often it is journalists who have to pay the price. Killing...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 22nd Nov 2019 | London, Review, United Kingdom, United States of America
South America’s trauma in the second half of the twentieth century can be summed up by one phrase:...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 9th Nov 2019 | Playwriting, Review, Theatre and Religion, Theatre and Science, United Kingdom
One of the great cultural divides is that between religion and science. Of course, as novels such...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 9th Nov 2019 | Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Memory involves places, people, things and words–especially words. This abstract proposition...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 9th Nov 2019 | Review, Theatre and Gender, United Kingdom
Botticelli is a household name, but who knows the true story behind his most famous painting? The...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 31st Oct 2019 | London, Review, United Kingdom
Feeling guilty can be a drug. A powerful drug. Okay, it makes you feel bad, but at the same time,...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 27th Oct 2019 | Documentary Theatre, London, Review, United Kingdom
True stories, even in a fictional form, have the power to grip you by the throat, furiously shake...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 26th Oct 2019 | London, Playwriting, Review, Theatre and Age, United Kingdom
Wow. Just wow. The moment you enter the auditorium of this venue it’s immediately obvious that...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 25th Oct 2019 | Adaptation, London, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Adaptation is too banal a word to describe the cross-fertilization of theatre and other art forms....
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 23rd Oct 2019 | London, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Sabrina Mahfouz is a British-Egyptian writer who has explored issues of Muslim and British...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 22nd Oct 2019 | London, Review, United Kingdom
One of the delights of London fringe theatre is its ability to nurture new talent. In this respect...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 18th Oct 2019 | Review, Theatre and Disability, United Kingdom
Playwright Peter Nichols died aged 92 last month, just before the opening of this starry West End...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 12th Oct 2019 | London, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
At the age of 81, Caryl Churchill, Britain’s greatest living playwright, is still going strong....
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