What if you woke up one day in the body of Kanye West? That’s the attention-grabbing idea behind Sam Steiner’s play, Kanye the First. Continue reading “Sam Steiner on Kanye the First: Why I cast a white woman as the rapper”
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Chipo Chung: I had to go round the houses to get into theatre
When Chipo Chung last saw Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage, she didn’t understand it. Now, she’s about to play the queen herself at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Perhaps surprisingly, it’s the first time the company has staged the tragedy.
Meet Thomas McCrudden, the violent criminal squaring up to his past on stage
You hear a lot about the ‘transformative’ power of theatre, but for Thomas McCrudden, a 46-year-old ex-convict, that’s no woolly statement – it’s a brutal truth.
I went to the maddest interactive shows on the Fringe so you don’t have to
It’s midnight, and I’m lying on a massage table on stage in front of a room full of people. I’m gripping a cucumber between my thighs, which a tall Australian man is demonstrating his hand-job technique on. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Edinburgh Fringe.
Review: Performers, Assembly Rooms
What’s the noise you keep hearing while watching Irvine Welsh’s play? Laughter? Not so much. It’s more likely the terrible creaking of a woefully old-fashioned script, co-written with Dean Cavanagh.
I’m drinking eight cans of cider onstage every day for a month
They say you have to suffer for your art. But whoever “they” are presumably aren’t talking about binge-drinking cider in public on a daily basis for a month. Mind you, that’s not stopping actor David William Bryan from doing exactly that at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe festival.
Review: salt, Summerhall
Selina Thompson is taking a sledgehammer and smashing up a great hunk of pinkish salt; she’s also smashing at the concepts of “imperialism, capitalism, racism”.
Review: Martin Creed’s Words and Music, EIF
Artist Martin Creed’s show defies easy categorisation. He shares some thoughts, from the problem with trousers to the inadequacies of language. He plays some songs: some illustrate his musings, some are aural non-sequiturs.
Stockard Channing: ‘I like to think there could be a return to civilised discourse, intelligent diplomacy…’
To have one iconic part you’re associated with forever can be a joy, or a drag. Stockard Channing has two. For some, she’ll always be Rizzo in Grease; for others, she’s the First Lady of our dreams, Abbey Bartlet in The West Wing.
John Tiffany on bringing Road back to the Royal Court and how he made West End magic with Harry Potter
He’s the man who made the magic of Harry Potter come alive on stage: John Tiffany pulled off the near impossible trick of crafting a blockbuster show that pleased both obsessive fans and snooty critics alike.