“The Pitchfork Disney” at Shoreditch Town Hall
Playwright Philip Ridley has one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary theatre. His...
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 | 19th Mar 2017 | London, Review, United Kingdom
Playwright Philip Ridley has one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary theatre. His...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 14th Mar 2017 | Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Oh dear. The first play explicitly about Brexit is being staged by the National Theatre in a...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 8th Mar 2017 | London, Review, United Kingdom
The current crisis in British new writing for the theatre is exemplified by the reliance of so...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 6th Mar 2017 | Review, Theatre and Gender, United Kingdom
The 1980s were a great decade for British women playwrights. During those Thatcher-dominated...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 1st Mar 2017 | Immersive Theatre, London, Review, United Kingdom
One of the reasons that Philip Ridley is the crown prince of imaginative playwriting is that he...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 27th Feb 2017 | Belgium, Review, Theatre for Young Audiences
How do you stage appalling real-life events? I mean, without either being too luridly voyeuristic...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 22nd Feb 2017 | Adaptation, Review, United Kingdom
There are few modern literary fables that really resonate in the wider culture. And most that do...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 21st Feb 2017 | Review, United Kingdom
The new writing year has started slowly. Apart from a couple of obscure fringe shows, there have...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 19th Feb 2017 | London, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Young British writers are often surprisingly unadventurous when it comes to locating their plays...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 14th Feb 2017 | Germany, Review, Theatre and Politics, Translation, United Kingdom
A day or so after Theresa May’s keynote speech about Brexit the words Europe and European carry an...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 4th Feb 2017 | Essay, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
This year has got off to a very slow start, with exciting new British plays being exceedingly...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 3rd Feb 2017 | Essay, Playwriting, Theatre and Gender, United Kingdom
When Sarah Kane was still alive, it was vital to support her work — her style was so raw, so...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 27th Jan 2017 | Adaptation, Review, United Kingdom
Theatre conventions are a funny thing. Nowadays, it’s actually quite difficult to see a modern...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 24th Jan 2017 | Essay, United Kingdom
Whether or not it really is a foreign country, the past has a tendency to feel like it’s a long...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 19th Jan 2017 | Review, Theatre and Disability, United Kingdom
You could call it the Corbynisation of new writing. In the past couple of years, a series of plays...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 10th Jan 2017 | News, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
For the past six months there has only been one news story in town: Brexit. In a referendum on...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 6th Sep 2016 | London, News, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
It is sad to record that the main controversy provoked by this summer’s West End mega-hit, Harry...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 30th Aug 2016 | London, News, United Kingdom
Some of the best shows on the London stage hail from across the pond, and more American delights...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 26th Aug 2016 | Essay, London, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Earlier this month, on 16 August, I went to a small, slightly stuffy London venue called Theatre...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 24th Aug 2016 | London, News, United Kingdom
The hottest show in London’s West End this year, and for the foreseeable future, is Harry Potter...
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