Sam Steiner’s “You Stupid Darkness!” at the Southwark Playhouse: Unconvincing Post-Apocalyptic Office Fantasy
Turn on the news. Go on. No? Okay, switch on the radio. Why not? Oh, I see, because the news is...
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 | 22nd Jan 2020 | London, Review, United Kingdom
Turn on the news. Go on. No? Okay, switch on the radio. Why not? Oh, I see, because the news is...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 16th Jan 2020 | Acting, Playwriting, Review, Theatre and Gender, United Kingdom
What has Saint Augustine of Hippo got to do with new writing? At first sight, not very much. That...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 14th Jan 2020 | London, Review, United Kingdom
Actor James McAvoy is much in demand: in the BBC’s His Dark Materials he is busy saving a parallel...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 12th Jan 2020 | London, Review, United Kingdom
Theatre can touch thousands of lives. But can it compete with the success of a bestselling book?...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 11th Jan 2020 | London, Review, United Kingdom
The trouble with prejudice is that you can’t control how other people see you. At the start of her...
Read MorePosted 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...
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