AmericanTheaterWeb NewsClips

The Times UK

Sir Fred and Mr B - the Sunday Times review
While the wayward young lovers dance neatly, their acting isn’t subtle enough for Ashton’s characterisations

Apologia - the Sunday Times review
Josie Rourke’s sensitive production presents a misleadingly solid country kitchen - the family’s foundations are perilously fragile

Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme - the Sunday Times review
Doesn’t succeed in linking together the soldiers’ personal dramas and the broader course of the campaign.

The Pianist - the Sunday Times review
Bartlett juxtaposes slabs of grim description and lambent melody, building the production like a dry-stone wall

The Hypochondriac - the Sunday Times review
This satire on the medical profession is the one Molière died on stage performing. This, however, is not a show that dies on stage

The Observer

My week: Alex Poots, director of the Manchester International Festival
Manchester is probably the only place in Britain that would welcome a festival with this much risk. It's a city with such a pioneering spirit, not just in its brilliant music and political activism; it had the first free public library, the first train station and the first computer was made here. Faced with losing the race to industrialise, landlocked Manchester brought the sea to the city by building the first major canal. It's this vision and "we'll make it happen" ethos that makes the festival possible.

How Eric Morecambe turned tears into sunshine
Edinburgh premiere for a play that highlights the rise and bitter struggles of Britain's funniest man

The Guardian

Theatre review: Every Time It Rains, Hull Truck Theatre
To mark the second anniversary of some of the worst flooding ever to hit Britain, Hull Truck has commissioned a new work from Rupert Creed, a pioneer of aural-history documentary dramas and a fine director and writer in the genre. Creed has crafted the verbatim accounts ...

Scouse meets Gaul and puts us all in the pink
He rhymes ye gods with senna pods. He does a good deja vu joke. He does a good deja vu joke. And he drops in a bit of French: "Je regrette ... rien," wails the constipated hypochondriac as he peers into his empty potty.

The Independent

Apologia, Bush, London
Everything Must Go, Soho, London
Oklahoma! Festival Theatre, Chichester
So what, exactly, is an apologia? "It means a formal, written defence of one's opinions or conduct ... Not to be confused with an apology." Thus Paola Dionisotti's Kristin – renowned art historian, veteran left-wing activist and lousy mother – defines the title of her autobiography and also of Alexi Kaye Campbell's drama in which she, Kristin, is confronted by Simon and Peter, her neglected sons.

Tom Tom Crew, E4 Udderbelly, London
Time was, circus acts only ever performed under canvas. How things have changed. Australia's Tom Tom Crew are currently to be found on the south bank of the Thames, performing inside an upside-down inflatable purple cow

Close-up: Felix Barrett
Few theatre companies could describe using a linear narrative as "taking a risk". But defying convention is the norm for Punchdrunk, the group behind a string of "immersive theatre" events that have already entered modern London folklore.

The heat is on: Our essential summer arts guide

Whatsonstage.com

Michael Coveney: Standing in line with a Calendar Girl
The most elegant, and most senior, of the Calendar Girls, Sian Phillips CBE, was standing at the bus stop on Friday night waiting for the Number Nineteen to take her home to Islington.