“House of Ife,” Bush Theatre
In the past, most plays by black-British writers have been about the legacy of the Windrush...
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 | 18th Jun 2022 | Dramaturgy, London, Playwriting, Review, Theatre and Decolonization, United Kingdom
In the past, most plays by black-British writers have been about the legacy of the Windrush...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 2nd May 2022 | London, Playwriting, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Although the current government has blundered through both Brexit and the pandemic, and is now...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 26th Apr 2022 | London, Playwriting, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
What does it feel like to be British and black? Ryan Calais Cameron has recently emerged as the...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 23rd Apr 2022 | London, Playwriting, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
When do you have to take a stand? What compels you to do it? And what are the costs involved?...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 18th Apr 2022 | Playwriting, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
In 1987, Caryl Churchill — without doubt the best living playwright in Britain — premiered her...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 14th Apr 2022 | London, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
You can’t keep a great playwright down. Ron Hutchinson, whose award-winning stage plays, such as...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 12th Apr 2022 | Applied Theatre, Essay, Theatre and Politics
When theatres closed during the pandemic, the first reaction was shock. Then was born, at least...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 2nd Apr 2022 | Adaptation, Directing, London, Review, United Kingdom
Is there really such a thing as an unmissable show? Depends on your taste of course, but for sheer...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 1st Apr 2022 | Playwriting, Review, Theatre and Gender, United Kingdom
Love is the most difficult four-letter word. And platonic love is perhaps the hardest kind of...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 30th Mar 2022 | London, Review, Theatre and Gender, United Kingdom
Mike Bartlett’s Cock invites suggestive comments, but the main thing about the play is that it has...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 23rd Mar 2022 | Directing, London, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Football stories are never just about a game — they are also about life and how to live it. In...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 18th Mar 2022 | Acting, Directing, London, Review, United Kingdom
Let’s start with stereotypes: British theater is naturalistic, down-to-earth and explains...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 2nd Feb 2022 | Directing, London, Management, Review, United Kingdom
Peggy Ramsay is a theater legend. Around the time of her death in 1991, the Australian-born agent...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 1st Feb 2022 | London, Review, Theatre and Gender, United Kingdom
Bizarre. Breathtaking. Beautiful. I leave the Royal Court theatre with these Bs, as well as others...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 29th Jan 2022 | Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
History is a prison. Often, you can’t escape. It imprints its mark on people, environments and...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 18th Jan 2022 | London, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
The National Theatre has a good record in staging classic American drama by black playwrights....
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 16th Jan 2022 | London, Review, Theatre and Gender, United Kingdom
It’s a sign of the times that one of my last trips of the year, to Ella Road’s Fair Play at the...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 14th Jan 2022 | Playwriting, Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
At the end of the 1960s, American soul poet Gil Scott-Heron said that the revolution will not be...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 31st Dec 2021 | London, Review, Theatre and Gender, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
A couple of days ago, I watched a live stream of Milk and Gall, an American-based playwright and...
Read MorePosted by Aleks Sierz | 29th Dec 2021 | Review, Theatre and Politics, United Kingdom
Is the Bosnian conflict of 1992–95 the war that Europe forgot? Maybe, although most fans of new...
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