Whaur’s Yer Wullie Shakespeare Noo? review – when John Home outdid Stratford’s Bard
Òran Mór, GlasgowBrian Logan revisits the 18th-century production of Home’s Douglas in a shouty comedy about nationalism, religion and the power of theatreIt is the most famous heckle in Scottish theatre history. In an exclamation of nationalist zeal…
The Standard of Living review – Rory Kinnear has bags of charm as Bloomsbury economist Keynes
Theatre Royal Haymarket, LondonJames Graham’s high-wire writing brings economic theory to life and connects it with art and fulfilment in this polished, ravishingly staged story of John Maynard KeynesNot everyone will know that the Bloomsbury group had a…
‘We could have had good fun a few decades ago’: Christine Baranski and Richard E Grant on sex scenes, parties and theatre
The actors are working together for the first time ever, in Noël Coward’s comedy Hay Fever. Backstage, there’s no stopping their tales of skinny-dipping, fat-shaming and warring co-starsRichard E Grant: Despite our vast combined vintage, our paths have…
Tru – review: a five-star performance of a three-star script about the life of Truman Capote
Menier Chocolate FactoryJesse Tyler Ferguson’s 85-minute monologue and Paul Farnsworth’s immersive set deserve better than a Broadway museum piece text on the Breakfast At Tiffany’s authorTruman Capote’s core creative life was brief, peaking between the…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream review – Munya Chawawa bewitches in lovingly juiced-up 90s rave
Chichester Festival theatreA narcotic, orgiastic woodland party clashes with the traditional values of John Major’s Tory party in Justin Audibert and Hannah Joss’s exuberant productionThe Shakespearean canon contains the term “love juice” twice, both in…
I’ll Be Seeing You review – Simon Russell Beale’s Liberace is a life force too great to be tamed
Pitlochry Festival theatreMartin Sherman’s meta new work sees Fra Fee’s writer struggling to turn out a play about the flamboyant pianist while despising everything the showman stands forSimon Russell Beale makes his entrance in mid-air, appearing some…
Two Doors Down review – outrageously sharp, joyously sweary return of the Latimer Crescent favourites
OVO Hydro, GlasgowAhead of the sitcom’s new series in 2027 the full TV cast reunite for a masterclass in comfort comedy, adding musical interludes to the familiar suburban bedlamIt may have started as a one-off special in 2013, but seven series and five…
‘I’m an everythingist’: How Es Devlin became the go-to for Beyoncé gigs, fashion runways and the Olympics
The Londoner is the set designer big names turn to for eye-popping spectacle. As a new retrospective opens, she gives the Guardian a glimpse at her studioFour years ago, the V&A East Storehouse in east London got in touch with Es Devlin. The museum’s…
First Encounters: Julius Caesar review – so thrilling it kept a hall full of teens in pin-drop silence
Ormiston Bushfield Academy, PeterboroughAn intro to Shakespeare doesn’t get any better than the RSC’s revival of Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female prison-set production led by Harriet Walter, which is touring schoolsThe auditorium is stripped bare – a…
‘A couple of times people walked out’: how an Anne Frank musical became the hottest theater ticket of the year
The creators and stars of Slam Frank on their off-Broadway production - which reimagines the Holocaust victim as a pansexual rapperIt’s difficult to not invoke the term “woke” when discussing Slam Frank, the 2025 musical that reimagines Anne Frank as a…