“Imaginationship” at The Finborough Theatre Explores a Divided Nation
It’s the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Finborough Arms pub, so Neil McPherson, artistic...
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 | 12th Feb 2018 | London, Playwriting, Review, United Kingdom
It’s the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Finborough Arms pub, so Neil McPherson, artistic...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 8th Feb 2018 | London, Review, United Kingdom
Playwright Alan Ayckbourn basically comes in two flavors: suburban comedies of embarrassment and...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 3rd Feb 2018 | London, Review, United Kingdom
What a brilliant title! Yes, this one must be up there with the likes of Jim Cartwright’s I Licked...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 31st Jan 2018 | London, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Is modernism dead and buried? Anyone considering the long haul of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 30th Jan 2018 | London, Review, Theatre and Gender, United Kingdom
Vicky Featherstone, the artistic director of this new writing venue, is riding high. Very high. A...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 25th Jan 2018 | London, Review, United Kingdom
The marvelous is a dangerous place. Especially in memory. Today I still remember seeing the first...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 11th Jan 2018 | Immersive Theatre, London, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Refugees, it is said, have no nationality—they are all individuals. This new docu-drama, The...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 7th Jan 2018 | London, Review, United Kingdom
History is a good place to talk about our contemporary concerns. And British theatre loves plays...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 29th Dec 2017 | London, Review, United Kingdom
Is Britain’s welfare system unfit for purpose? Well, all the news channels seem to suggest that...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 26th Dec 2017 | London, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
George Bernard Shaw was a theatrical superman. A critical attack dog, as well as a creator of...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 18th Dec 2017 | Review, Syria, Translation, United Kingdom
The civil war in Syria spawns image after image of hell on earth. Staging the stories of that...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 12th Dec 2017 | Essay, London, Playwriting, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Friday, May 7, 2010; Brixton, south London; darkest night. Early dawn touches a Victorian terraced...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 11th Dec 2017 | London, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
The political story of our time is the upsurge in support for Jeremy Corbyn, leftwing leader of...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 8th Dec 2017 | London, Review, United Kingdom
Who will watch the watchers? As Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth I’s spymaster, says, in...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 29th Nov 2017 | London, Review, Theatre and Politics, Ukraine, United Kingdom
War is morally acidic: it dissolves social rules, loosens inhibitions and gives permission to men...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 27th Nov 2017 | Acting, London, Playwriting, Review, United Kingdom
One defining characteristic of Englishness is social awkwardness, and its emotional register is an...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 25th Nov 2017 | London, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Asylum is one of the most emotive words in the English language. It evokes valleys of pain,...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 22nd Nov 2017 | London, Playwriting, Review, United Kingdom
Harry Potter has a lot to answer for. The phenomenal success of JK Rowling’s books, and of their...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 21st Nov 2017 | Acting, London, Playwriting, Review, United Kingdom
Continental drama, in this era of Brexit negotiations, seems to be rarer and rarer on British...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 20th Nov 2017 | Adaptation, London, Review, United Kingdom
The Second World War is central to our national imagination, yet it has been oddly absent from our...
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