Rehearsing Othello on Zoom: the theatre students pursuing their dream during a pandemic

Published in The Evening Standard January 21, 2021

While 2020 may be behind us, the new year brings continued uncertainty for the UK’s theatre industry. And if the situation is bleak for staff and freelancers facing shuttered venues, it’s surely even tougher for the next generation of talent: young people still studying – who have had to return to remote learning online this month, as schools and colleges shut once more – as well as those who graduated last summer with little chance of working.

‘If people can’t go to the panto then it must go to them’: the birth of The Travelling Pantomime

Published in The Telegraph November 29, 2020

Pantomime is a cornerstone of Christmas for families up and down Britain – but few cities are quite as committed to it as York. The annual show at York Theatre Royal is a proper local institution, with generations of families booking the same seats year after year, and prompting queues around the block the day tickets go on sale.

Review: Rent, Hope Mill Theatre

Published in The Stage November 5, 2020

“No day but today, no day but today.” The last lines of Jonathan Larson’s 1993 musical Rent have surely never felt quite so applicable: opening night here is also closing night.

Tinuke Craig: ‘Part of me feels Black Lives Matter brought people together; part thinks people were bored’

Published in The i paper October 28, 2020

“I had this anxiety that I would just be extremely rusty,” says Tinuke Craig, with an apologetic smile, when I ask how it feels to be back in a rehearsal room. While the director is thrilled to be preparing for a socially distanced production and live stream of Sarah Kane’s stark, poetic play Crave at Chichester Festival Theatre, she was nervous about getting back to work, too.

Rufus Norris on theatre and class: There’s ‘an awful danger’ that only people with money can survive in the industry

Published in The i Paper September 24, 2020

When lockdown was announced, Francesca Martinez’s play All of Us was in its final week of rehearsals at the National Theatre.

‘There will be positives’: artistic directors on theatre’s terrible year

Published in The Observer September 27, 2020

Last summer, the Observer profiled a group of newly-appointed artistic directors – a fresh surge of talent taking its place at the top of six of our best-loved theatre companies. A notably diverse cohort, they were bursting with optimism and ideas for shaking up the industry.

3-D Sound and a Zoom Apocalypse: The Plays That Come to Life Online

Published in The New York Times May 20, 2020

There’s a voice inside your head, and it’s telling you the story of a man who went into the Amazon and came out with a new understanding of human consciousness. It whispers in your left ear, then your right. Then it seems to take up residence right inside your skull.

Revisiting The Encounter

Published in Exeunt May 23, 2020

Revisiting a piece of art can be like time travel. You come face-to-face with your former self in the pages of a book re-opened after years on the shelf, or in an album that whisks you back to a distant summer, a different you.

Review: The Taming of the Shrew, The Globe

Published in Time Out March 19, 2020

There’s probably a German word for the precise feeling of frustration you get watching Globe artistic director and world-class Shakespearean actor Michelle Terry sat on stage, not playing one of the thorniest parts in Shakespeare.

Review: Pretty Woman: The Musical, Piccadilly Theatre

Published in The Mail on Sunday March 7, 2020

If you’ve ever wondered how the 1990 movie Pretty Woman, which made a fairytale romcom out of a rich-man-meets-prostitute premise, would fare in the age of #MeToo – well, this production won’t help.

Holly Williams

Journalist and writer

Category: Theatre